One glaze, three results.
I recently glazed a few bowls of mine only to realize after the glaze firing that the glaze I used didn't look like anything it did the first time around - a variation of green with a really nice cracking, as you can see in this picture above. No, instead it turned out all brown:ish, as in the picture below. And some bowls almost didn't get any glaze at all at some parts.
A glaze can vary A LOT. For example if you havn't stired the glaze carefully enough and therefore don't get the components of the glaze to spread evenly in the water, if the oven didn't hold the right temperature, if all the objetcs in the oven wasn't glazed in the same glaze the difference in components between the glazes might have effected them, if the goods or glaze is thinner or thicker then before e.t.c. The list goes on.
So yes, a lot can happen to a glaze depending on the process. And It's fairly easy to get upset because it didn't turn out as you thought it would, I sure did, but it's also one of the more exciting things when it comes to ceramics and glazes, that you never know how the end result is going to be. Sure, you can use certain glazes that will give you a more even result, or maybe you are an expert and therefore know what you're doing. I'm sure not, but I really don't mind. Even though I'm a complete control freak I really like the unexpected, random, and this result was definitely unexpected. So after I calmed down I realized that I actually liked the way the glaze looked, quite a lot.
One of my bowls did not turn out as great, so I decided to reglaze it and hope for a better result. Reglazing is not as easy as the first time around because the clay can no longer absorb any water. So instead of just dipping the object right into the glaze and letting it self absorb the glaze you have to start by heating up the obejct, so that the glaze actually will stick to its surface, and then let the glaze dry completly, preferbly with a heat gun to speed things up. And well, this end result might not be my personal favourite, but it looks a lot better than it did before. As you can see in the picture above it didn't turn out as green as the first bowl and neither as brown/beige as the second one, instead it landed somewhere in between. Pretty alright I think, for being my first time reglazing. Is reglazing even a proper word? Oh well, you'll get it.
And that's how I got one glaze with three completely different results. And even though this was all just a big coincidence you could easily just decide to have some fun with it and see what happens.
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