Bisque Firing Session

Finally, the big day is here!!
This is the day I long for....Whenever i finish making my pottery piece, i feel like bisque firing it immediately. Alas... I cannot do it immediately...first, i do not have an electric kiln and secondly i should have enough number of pieces to make firing effective in natural firing as well. This time we set up firing for approx 200 small pieces. We had to leave few big pieces as there was not enough space to accommodate all of them.

Next morning, we were nervous and excited before opening the bhatti as it is the result day. The process of finding your piece from a heap of ash is divine. To our surprise, firing went extremely well...there was only 5 percent breakage unlike my previous firing sessions. I'm happy that my students's pieces were 100% fired :)
There was slight damage of my pottery collection, especially the coil diya.  For rest of the pottery, the output is a mix as this time some of my pieces got real terracotta shade and some got burnished black colour. I want to use this shade of black as it looks awesome and gives a very antique look to the pottery.

Here are few pics of the most important days.

Pottery Pieces Ready for Firing

Beautiful Slab Vase by Student

Student Work

Bhatti Packed and Ready...V for Victory

This is how it looks after 20 hours of heat...Terracotta pieces are peeking through hole

Bisque Firing Complete and Ready for Opening

Finally, All terracotta pieces are picked and what remain is Ashes

Final Result of Bisque Firing..Awesome

Little Damage after Bisque Firing