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| Raku Pottery Inspired Vase by Bea Grob |
Today I show you how you can mimic the Raku fired earthen clay
by using black Makin's Clay® and some mica powders. But let's start at the beginning.
Materials:
Makin's Clay® - Black
Makin's Profesional® Ultimate Clay Machine®
Makin's® Clay Roller
Two part mold making compound
Mica powders
Glass bottle
PVC glue
Instructions:
Whenever I go for a walk, I tend to collect things, this time
I found some beautiful deeply veined leaves which I turned into a mold with
some two part silicone mold putty.
I first made two equal sized balls from each of the putty components and then mixed them until
they had a uniform color. I rolled them out to about 4 to 5 mm thickness and pressed the
leave into the silicone.
It doesn't take long to cure the silicone, so after a half
hour or so, I was ready to roll out the black Makin's Clay® using the Makin's Professional® Ultimate Clay
Machine® on the thickest setting, #1. I pressed the mold onto the clay and applied light pressure with the clay roller.
That's what it should look like, you want some nice veins in
your Makin's Clay®.
I covered a recycled glass bottle with some PVA
glue and let it dry completely. This helps to give a little bit tooth to the
smooth surface and the Makin's Clay® sticks better.
Next, I used some leave shaped cookie cutters to cut out
leaves shapes with the structure in it. (Note: the cookie cutter has two sided, a smooth one and the
jagged one you can see in the picture, I used the smooth one). Before I
attached them to the glass, I used different colors of Mica powder to enhance them.
I started at the top overlapping them slightly, making sure
that the first one still could be lifted, so that
you can squeeze the last one
underneath the first one. I worked my way down and at the end I and cut off any overhang at the bottom. 
Voilà! That's how you get your own version of Raku pottery.
