Glaze Test Results

Today we got the first snow. It is wet and was preceded by much rain and I don't think it will be here long, but it was a shock to the system after the long mild fall to realize that winter is really here now. How is it that every year I get caught out by it? I saw the leaves falling off the trees. I have had to scrape frost off the car windows a couple mornings. The heat came on last week during the night. Northern New Brunswick and Alberta have already had snow. Still, I refused to believe the weather network when they announced we would get a nor'easter today. Hmmm. It might be time to see if the snowblower will start.
Last week I did some glaze tests to see how I should glaze the plant pot for my friend David. It was very exciting to open that kiln and see what I got. Friday I glazed the pot itself. It's funny but test tiles never really seem to tell the whole story. It is like the paint chip never really shows what the room will look like. These are a couple samples of what I got when I tested some colours. The middle colour of the three is what I used for the pot, and the second tile picture is that glaze over some other colours. My test tiles are relief tiles that we made for the shower, and the relief creates breaks in the glaze colours, which can be quite interesting, but if the surface being glazed is smooth, the colours can be quite different. The glaze didn't break up as much on the pot itself, so the finished surface is quite a bit darker than I expected. You can see how the rim coils make the glaze break, but the leaf imprints weren't enough to affect it. It still interesting because there is a rich sheen to the mat finish under bright light, but in a dark room that gets lost and it is just a dark pot and rather dull. If this were a plate or a mug, I'd run it though the dishwasher two dozen times and know it would get more interesting as the surface wears a bit, but I don't imagine it will be subjected to that sort of daily abuse as a plant pot.
Today I'm firing another glaze kiln with some butter dishes I made last spring. I started making some Christmas presents this week, (nothing like getting started early!) and those butter dishes were just taking up room on the shelf. The bonus of pushing work through is that I may actually have a functional butter dish to use when Peter's parents arrive for their visit.