Oh So Very Black

For the most part, my attempt to revise ceramic vessels by firing them over again in a reduction kiln resulted in improvements.  Sometimes they got worse, other times they just became different.  In the case of two refired lidded vessels they went from very little smoke pattern to very dark.  But because the darkness had a variable texture and shine, I decided to keep them.  On the larger jar, there were a few spots of delaminating glaze.  On this covered the areas with gold leaf.  The pot itself had a somewhat metallic sheen from the high heat and organic matter, almost like raku ware.  The gold touches worked okay on the pot for this reason.
The smaller jar got quite dark indeed.  The left is the before, the right after.