A Happily Accidental Still Life

The weather made a turn for the worse yet again today so there was very little chance of an outside blip image so I went for another still life, this time with a twist.
As usual with my still lives I had to do a bit of scrabbling around to find anything remotely blipworthy. I'd left it almost too late in the day again until I saw the wonderfully decorated raku vase in our living room that I'd bought my brother as a Christmas present from our local pottery a couple of years ago and rather remarkably then came across a stray plastic bag underneath our dining room table with a very similar design - so why not combine them for my image!
Raku really is one of the most natural techniques that you can encounter in pottery. In raku firing all of nature's elements are used - earth, fire, air and water. The earth is used to make the pot (or other vessels), then it's put into the heat of a reduction chamber kiln and next thrust into the cold water that halts the firing process.
Typically wares are fired at a high temperature, and after pieces are removed form the kiln they are placed in an open-air container filled with combustible material - for example sawdust, straw, leaves, newspaper or as per my image a feather - which then leaves an impression on the surface fixed by then plunging it into cold water.
A lovely fact about raku pottery is that its name literally translates as 'happiness in the accident'. The initial shot I took still needed a little extra something which is when my brother suggested using the inverse negative tool in photoshop and it was just the twist I needed to create this happily accidental still life! :-)