Before the Firing

In my prior post I gave you a peek inside how I raku fire my beads.  Today, I'd like to show you some of the work that goes into actually making the beads.  (Please excuse the weird lighting, I work in a basement.)

All my beads start from a lump of wet clay.  I use an assortment of techniques to make them; slabs, molds, hand-forming, etc...  Once I've made a bead I let it dry for a few days.  This unfired clay is known as greenware.

When I have a large pile of greenware ready, I sit down and sponge them so the edges will be nice and smooth.

These are all pieces that have been sponged and organized.

When all the sponged pieces are dry, I load them into my little kiln.  Since they aren't glazed they can be stacked on top of one another.  This first firing is the bisque firing.

While this firing only takes a couple of hours the kiln is so hot that I don't unload it until the next day.  I then remove all the pieces and organize them on trays (can you tell I like being organized?  hehe!).

If I see a good raku-firing day coming, that's when I start glazing my beads.  I lay paper towels down on my worktable, fill some cups with distilled water, put on my gloves and start a glazing marathon.  Once all the beads are glazed they are put on my special racks and a ready to be raku fired!

And that's how my raku beads are born!