Wednesday, January 27, 2010

A Feathered Favor?

I've already babbled a bit about the raku workshop that I'm going to attend at the end of February. But wait, there's more! The lady teaching it wants us to bring one bisqued and burnished piece so we can try smoke painting. Isn't that a great phrase? I get all sorts of nifty imagery from it. Smoke painting. Cool.

What it really means is that you take bisque, get it really hot in a kiln and then burn the sh*t outta your fingers putting horse hair, pet fur/hair and or feathers on the pot. It burns in very quickly, leaving patterns behind. (I stole this picture from here. The scratchy lines are horse hair. The feather looking thing is, well, a feather.)


The burnishing part of the process is going to be a royal pain, but I'd like to do one or two just for the experience. I have PLENTY of fur from the fluffballs, but I do not have a source for feathers.

Anyone have any that they'd be willing to share? Or know of a good cheap source for natural feathers? I'd really appreciate it, and I'll trade pottery for them!

2 comments:

R.Powers said...

This sounds really neat. Who thinks of these techniques?!

Suldog said...

Fascinating. I wish I did know a source for you.