Kurt's "Intense Focus Face." Not "Bad Mood Face," as my housemate thought.
It’s that time again, folks. Deadweek. The week of test preparations.
Or, if you’re an art student, the week of project deadlines.
If you’re an independent study art student, it’s the week to evaluate how little you’ve accomplished in proportion to your overblown self-expectations.
So this weekend I took a minor road trip to visit Kurt in Oklahoma. It was a belated birthday celebration of sorts involving chess, Mexican food, and Saturday Night Live. Also Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I also brought a blank canvas and my oil paints so I could make him a belated birthday present. So I sat him down in a nice, comfy papazan chair, converted the kitchen trashcan into a makeshift easel, plugged in Afro Samurai, and spent an intense two hours of alla prima oil painting (where you paint everything in one sitting, start to finish).
Yes indeed. Afro Samurai himself, voiced by Samuel L. Jackson. More pressurized blood and deadly stuffed animals than you can shake a stick at. Or a paintbrush, for that better. But fantastically done from an artistic standpoint. 
I think my style was slightly influenced. But it might be all in my head.
Just before I hit the road to get there Friday night, we (ceramics class) completed another raku firing. Nothing happened this time…no accidents…no close calls, even. I need to get my adrenaline fix elsewhere, because we’re just getting too good.
At least the holes in the gloves give some sort of excitement. I can remove things until the gloves begin to smoke. The catch is stopping before the flames start.
Here are a few interesting tidbits about raku for those who have little know-how:
(i.e. things I’ve learned in the past month)…
1. Tongs can be used as a stable extension of the kiln handle, so the opener’s arm hair can remain intact.
2. Raku firings need a special team of three: an opener (for the kiln lid), a remover (operating tongs), and a guy-who-throws-on-sawdust-and-shoves-bucket-overtop-and-down-into-the-sand.
3. Just because the glaze doesn’t say “raku” doesn’t mean you can’t try it…if there are metal oxides, it can be reduced.
4. Bandannas keep hair alive and intact.
5. It really is better to do it outside, if at all possible. Some funky fumes happen.
6. All that junk on there afterwards…you can scrub that off.
Pre-Comet
Post-Comet
The buttons on the top row are the “Shake It And Scream” technique taught to me by a good friend. Rapidly cooling the glaze forms major cracks, and smoking it immediately after forces carbon down into the cracks, outlining a spiderweb pattern of black.
The bottom row is the “Reduction” technique, where you place the buttons on the combustibles and seal it as soon as possible, forcing the heat to eat all the oxygen in the air and turn to the glaze, ripping out those oxygens through a chemical process, turning the metal oxides back to their pure metal form. The longer the glaze is exposed to the air, the more the color and less the metallic effect. Any exposed bisque is smoked black.
Reduction firing - I used a traditional raku glaze and a "normal" glaze called Antique Green, which contained oxidized copper."Shake and Scream" yellow (which didn't get shook long enough, hence the lack of spiderweb) and Antique Green (reduced).
Also, I tried to burn off strategic areas of carbon off a different pot I had previously smoked (harharhar…yeah…I know…get over it). At first, I figured kerosine and rags would do the trick.
It was buried in the sand to keep the outer shell's temperature cool to keep its carbon on. I didn't need to worry though, because a little fire like this didn't burn hot enough or long enough to make much of a difference.
So…plan #2: de-smoking with a blow-torch.
I figured there wasn't much danger of setting the concrete floor on fire. So that's where I worked.
Despite my efforts to keep the torch moving and the heat consistent, the pot still cracked. It's okay, though, because they fit the piece. Once I figure out how to effectively light and photograph black objects, I'll post a good pic, because it worked in the end. The inside's white, fading to black as it approaches the opening.
Finally, since the pot was still warm from the blow-torch, I waxed the burnished surface. Waxing on a cold surface can produce a white residue after about a week; it’s important to melt it into the surface. Even in his treatises on fresco, Alberti recommends heating a waxed surface. Story old as time, song old as rhyme.
Post wax. Sooo shinyyyy....
