Hooray! All the tiles survived the rigors of raku firing and now the panel is ready to be permanently affixed to its backing.
My favorite part of this project: carving the wing feathers.
I love the way botanical subjects look in raku. It’s such a great technique for subjects drawn from nature — and sometimes you get a nice little gift from the fire: an unexpected flash of pure copper, pulled from the glaze during the oxygen-starved reduction stage. I bury the hot tiles under mounds of fresh wood shavings, where they smolder for a minute or two before being quenched in a cool water bath. I think the copper that appeared in the background sets off the canna leaf quite nicely!
This 44×22 panel will be auctioned off tomorrow night at Phantasy for the Arts, a fundraising event for the Fairhope Educational Enrichment Foundation.
The first tie I heard about raku was with you. This is awesome!
The unfired tiles were beautiful, and the finished piece is gorgeous!
You do magnificent work! That egret takes my breath away. I can appreciate the talent and work that goes into a project like this because I have done some clay work and I know how difficult it is let alone how hard it is to have it go through all the stages without a catastrophe of some sort. Thanks for the great posts. It was fun to watch your project unwrap to be the beauty that it is! Nice job!
It turned out beautifully. I especially like the crackling in the glaze on the egret. It looks like shading on the bird.
Hi Val,
Beautiful work, as always! I wish I could see your studio.
Robin
Oh my, this is absolutely gorgeous. Val, you do such beautiful raku work.
Like Robin’s comment, I’d love to see your studio, too. Lovely work, Val. Hope the auction goes well and you make lots off of your beautiful piece.
that is way cool. i wish i could do something like that for garden markers. soooooooo pretty!!!!!!
Wow! These are amazing – how do I find out more??? Would love some of these in my new home.
Just Beautiful!! You are just Awesome!!
Stunning! Someone will be the lucky recipient and I wish it were me!
Hi Val,
Absolutely breathtaking! It’s wonderful to know that there are still artisans out in the world who are producing such fine work.
Regards,
Lois
Your talent is just astounding. This is a gorgeous piece of work and I appreciate it all the more for the illustrated work in progress posts.