Smoking!

Monday was the final day of the pottery course. Our pieces had all been fired and were white in colour. We created designs on some of them with masking tape, painted them with two types of slip, then peeled off the masking tape. Others we simply wrapped with copper wire and did not paint with slip. Then came the exciting bit! The pieces of pottery were placed in a large metal dustbin fitted with a gas burner, and heated to a high temperature. They were then lifted out and immediately placed into a metal container with sawdust, which created lots of smoke. The smoke coloured the areas of the clay that were not covered with slip.

Once they had cooled down we began to pick the slip off. In some areas the smoke had penetrated through cracks and bubbles in the slip, and left wonderful cracks and spots. Now all I have to do is remove the rest of the slip and add some wax to give a bit of a sheen.