"The ancient technique of smoke firing transforms raw clay into durable ceramics while carbon from burning leaves, sawdust, or paper embeds itself in the clay, mottling it with blues and grays, leaving cloudy forms around resist materials, or blackening the surface completely".

                                                              Jane Perryman

Smoke firing is a pottery technique that has been around for thousands of years and is still used today by artists. I personally like the result of smoke firing and use it exclusively in my own work. I am in awe of the random patterns and colours developed on a pot because of smoking firing.

If you decide to smoke fire, there are various materials used to complete the process, for example, newspapers, sawdust, combustible organic materials (rinds, banana peels, lettuce, etc.) are just a few materials used. Included in smoke firing are pit firing, wood firing, raku firing, barrel firing, and bon firing. Be creative and try coming up with a technique that works for you.

The simplest method to smoke fire is the use of newspaper. I often use this technique and find the results interesting; yet, the approach is very simplistic. After burnishing a vessel, apply terra sigilatta or slip to the surface of the pot, re-burnish the surface of the pot, and then bisque fire it in an electric kiln. Completing those steps, the pot is ready to be smoke fired in a make shift kiln.

Using chimney bricks, build a make shift kiln to fit the number of pots going into the smoke fire. Once the kiln is constructed, place newspaper in the bottom of the kiln on a layer of sawdust. Remember to use chimney bricks as the floor of the kiln as well.

After placing the pots into the make shift kiln, crumple up newspaper and place it around the pots as well as in between the work. Sub-culture newspapers give the best results regarding colour and various values of greys and blacks in a smoke firing. Please note that terra sigillata and oxides darken during the smoke firing process.

After neatly arranging the pots and newspapers, light the fire and cover the top of the kiln immediately with a metal lid. Normally, the fires burns out within less than ten minutes and then allow the pieces to cool down before removing them from the kiln. Removing hot pottery from the kiln too soon causes damage to the pot.

If you remove the work from the smoke fire and you are not happy with the result, place the piece back into your electric and fire the pot again. The process of re-firing the work in your kiln removes all the smoke from the surface of the pottery and can be smoke fired as often as necessary—until you get the results you are satisfied with.

If you decide you want a completely black pot instead of patterns and colour, it is a simple process to accomplish. Before starting the fire, fill in the cracks between the bricks with clay or some other solid, non-combustible material, light the fire, place the metal lid on top of the kiln, and put bricks on top of the lid immediately so air cannot enter the kiln. This process is referred to as reduction, which is simply eliminating oxygen from the kiln.

“Reduction refers to the state of being oxygen-starved. It can also be used to replace the full term, "reduction atmosphere".

After the work or works have cooled down, remove the pottery from the kiln and apply beeswax to the surface of the work. The beeswax enhances the surface of the burnished vessel.

NOTE: It has been my experience that bees wax is difficult to find in the United States. However, beeswax is available in just about every hardware store in the UK.