The technique we used is quite simple; bisque fired work is painted with copper, iron and manganese oxide and then placed in a smoke chamber along with colour enhancing ingredients such as coffee grinds, copper wire, salt, soot, sea weed and hydrangea heads. We made salt and coffee bombs ( salt and coffee grinds wrapped in a sheet of newspaper) which we placed inside and beside the vessels so that when they get hot they will burst and give the ceramics an intense blast of colour.

Once the ceramics are placed on a layer of sawdust another layer of sawdust is poured on top…

Some newspaper is torn up and placed on top…

It is lit….

And once the sawdust catches fire, it is time to replace the lid so that the sawdust will glow and smoulder rather than burn, allowing the smoke to decorate the surfaces. The barrel will reach about 8-900 degrees Celsius.

My next sculpture and smoke firing workshop will take place at Dudley Road studios on Sunday 12th February and there will be a plate making workshop on Sunday 5th February. To find out more please go here

All my little owls have sold without me actually noticing it…They are all smoke fired ceramic.

I thought I made a lot of them, but I now notice that I haven’t got any left…

Must try harder.

A group of Belgian people dropped by my studio this week to pick up some ceramic sculptures. I particularly liked this Fat Bird because of the small, star like white spots on her side, and I am actually sorry to see her go.
The white spots are caused by salt exploding during the smoke firing. The grey and black markings are painted by the smoke – the original colour of my clay is white.
I have used red Botz brush -on glaze for her eyes.

I daubed some red iron and manganese oxide on this Fat Bird, but the black markings appeared during the smoke firing. Again, she is made from white clay.

Even though this Fat Bird  is also smoke fired, the smoke has only left a gentle grey hue and the markings comes mainly from manganese, copper and iron oxide.

I recently wrote about a ceramic vase I was making…I have been circling around it for weeks, building up courage to place it in a dustbin and set fire to it.

So last night I did the deed and torched my vase… 

I placed a few of my Angels in there for good measure… And this was what I found this morning…
  
It was still smouldering as I hoiked it out of the bin. I had no gloves and was far too impatient to go and fetch some, so I used my sweather as a fireblanket. Not a good idea. I set fire to the grass as well, which is worse, but the vase survived. It is still too hot to clean up – I think it looks pretty good so far.

 We covered the bisque fired bowls and sculptures in copper and manganese oxides, added copper netting from kitchen scourers, as well as banana peels, coffee grinds and salt to maximise the effects of the smoke firing!
And then!  Rosie does her thing!

 Merlin came, too!

If you would like to find out more about my ceramic workshops, please go to www.annakeiller.com/workshops

I have now had a chance to update my ceramic workshop diary with new dates for the autumn, and here they are..
http://annakeiller.com/workshops/workshop-diary/

There are two different workshop types to choose from;
Introduction to sculpting, plaque or bowl making without a wheel. These classes take place on Sundays from 10am – 3pm and include lunch, tea, coffee and cake. We basically work from 10am until lunch which is home made pasta with local sea food and salad followed by pud and coffee. I use organic produce and bread from Judges bakery.
After lunch we finish what we started during the morning session. Two weeks later, when I have fired the work, we meet up again to glaze and smoke fire.
These workshops are suitable for beginners and for people who have worked with clay before . The groups are small with max. 6 people.
The cost for two workshops is £70 including all materials, firings and lunch.

The 5 session workshops take place on Saturday afternoons and cover coiling, slab building and press moulding techniques as well as glazing and smoke firing. The sessions are 2.5 hours long and the cost for all 5 sessions including materials, firings, tea and refreshments is £120. Groups are small with max 6 participants.

to see what the smoke would do to the white clay at the top.
 It was a beautiful day with just the right amount of wind to fan the smouldering sawdust.
The smoke firing process takes about 15-20 hours and it is best not to remove the lid until the heat has died down, or the sudden change of temperature might cause the ceramic sculptures to crack. I found it really difficult not to have a sneaky peak… The pomegranates are between 20-30 cm tall.