Happy Halloween!

Here's some creepy critters for your Bubbling Cauldron! 

Have a Happy Halloween!

Round about the caldron go;

In the poison'd entrails throw.— 

Toad, that under cold stone, 

Days and nights has thirty-one; 

Swelter'd venom sleeping got, 

Boil thou first i' the charmed pot! 

Double, double toil and trouble; 

Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,—
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

-William Shakespeare Macbeth

Color Inspiration Gray and Golden Yellow

Gray. The neutral everyone loves to talk about, myself included! Here in rainy Portland, Oregon we get plenty of gray. Our skies are gray 222 days a year (according to the Western Regional Climate Center). So maybe that's why I'm so happy to embrace the gray-yellow combination that's been the talk of the town lately, I can always use a little sunshine!

photo via Belle Maison

I've matched up some great inspiration photos with their tile interpretations of this lovely color combo in glass and ceramics. For starters, here's a lovely color palette.

Color Collective palette

On the Color Collective blog they pull color palettes from the beautiful images that inspire them. The colors are shown right underneath making them easy to use as a starting point for any kind of project. A great place to look if you need a little help with color combinations.

photo from Better Homes & Gardens via Casa Sugar

I love these yellow medallions and the beautiful warm gray wall color. It seems like a fun place to start and it immediately called to mind Pratt & Larson circle tile. This random circle blend plays on the medallion look above with a spattering of golden circles. Just a tiny punch of color can be enough to liven up an installation.

P&L random circles in W30, W88 & W89

I noticed these Intaglio textured tiles below in the factory getting ready to be shipped out, they have a much softer feeling to them and a warmer gray like the wall color behind the bright medallions that works nicely with the tatami like textures.

P&L Intaglio textures in W70 and W81

Stripes! I love this bedding. The quilted stripes in the yellow cover are a nice quiet echo of the bold gray and white stripes. So clean and crisp!

photo from Dwell via Apartment Therapy

Here's a field of Pratt & Larson random length stripes that might be just the thing for the bathroom connecting to this bedroom!

P&L random netted rectangles in R350 & R25

Or, if you like a bolder look here's some big wide stripes in a glass mosaic tile.

photo from Belle Maison

The Kellie pattern by Scalamandre in French Blue, Yellow and Off White uses the gray and yellow combination in a beautiful swirling pattern.

Kellie wallpaper by Scalamandre via Morrison Polkinghorne

If it's a more floral decorative pattern that catches your eye, take a look at our Vine Flower pattern. Shown here in two Duochrome colorways, I think the tiny yellow liner ties the whole look together in either colorway. 

P&L bas relief Vine Flower in DW79 & DW76 with a W25 liner

                 photo from Martha Stewart                                                 photo from Belle Maison

And finally here's a great assortment of yellow and gray prints framed with a touch of silver from Martha Stewart's website along with an installation of glass mosaics in assorted size squares that has a similar feeling.

You can interpret all kinds of images into tile, either using them as a palette starter like on Color Collective, or taking the overall feeling or patterning as your cue. Collect all kinds of images for inspiration and bring them in when you visit our showroom so we can help you find just the right tile to compliment your style.

In the Factory - Custom Color Matching

Today's "In the Factory" post is all about our custom color matching service. We have hundreds of glaze colors but sometimes you're looking for something very specific that isn't part of our standard glaze line. Don't worry! We can match most anything.Paint chips, vintage tile, fabric swatches, we've matched it all.

 This client sent us a series of paint chips to match.

Here's the sample chips of the custom glazes we created to match the paint chips.

And here's the swatch of Mosaic border 25 they requested in the custom colors.

It takes us about two weeks to match a sample and then we'll send you a chip to approve, or in this case a chip and a mosaic!

Here's another example of a custom color project. This client had fallen in love with some pieces of an old tile that was made on a red clay body. The red clay really shows through the glaze lending a warmth to the color that we just couldn't recreate on our white clay.

So we first sprayed the tile with a red slip, (slip is like liquid clay) which you can see here on the ends of the finished tiles. 

Then we applied the green and blue glazes. Success!

We love to work on custom projects, custom shapes, custom artwork and custom colors. If you have something special in mind chances are good we can make it happen!

Reta Larson's Side Street Gallery

Michael Pratt is having a show in November at Reta Larson's Side Street Gallery. A retrospective show featuring his terrific cards, including some never before seen images. His "Nostradogmas" is on the cover of this quarters Art Source Portland, a great guide to the Portland art gallery scene. The Side Street Gallery is the place to go for all things unusual and fun and their signature collection of plastic light ups. Stop in to see the art and pick up a holiday light up for your own display. 

Pratt and Larson Factory Tour

Did you know that we make our tile in Portland, Oregon?
We have a great team of amazingly talented artists and craftsmen who oversee all of the many many steps that go into producing Pratt and Larson Tile. Here's a little factory tour so you can see for yourself.

Making tile in the Extruding Dept

Creating the original artwork in the Casting Dept

Filling the molds in the Casting Dept

Loading the Bisque Kiln

Mixing the Glaze in the Glazemaking Dept

Glazes are applied by hand in the Hand Painting Dept

And applied with a spray gun in the Glazing Dept

Mesh mounting the Mosaics in the Netting Dept

If you're in town come on in and ask for a tour at the front desk!

 We love to show off. 

In the Factory

Wandering through the factory I noticed a job in the shipping department using some of our earlier decorative tiles, the Mermaid panel and Wave.

Isn't she pretty?

I thought these Elongated Ogee tiles going to another job would make a nice watery field for her.

If you install them horizontally they look like waves - 

But she'll need to watch where she's swimming with these Fly Fishing 2x2's at the next table!

Our Newest Vignette

Our new Craftsman Vignette is complete! 

At the top is Cascade Blend # 1, our tile and stone mosaic series, and Intaglio pattern A 3x8 in C203 which has a lovely soft texture.

Here's a close up:

From there it switches to a warm Bas-Relief pinecone in C92 with C205 for the counter and trim.

 Here's a close up of the Bas-Relief:

It's anchored with a great base cabinet of C70 Wall Relief and a beautiful DW52 hand painted pinecone border.

The pinecone decorative relief border is hand painted in Duochrome for a tone on tone effect.

As always it's even better in person, so stop by the showroom to see for yourself!

In the Factory - Bold Color!

Why pick white tile when there's all these great color choices out there! This week there's a number of jobs moving through our production facility using some really bright bold colors. What fun!

Big building blocks of color! 

These 6x12 field tiles are in some of our most intense R-gloss glazes, and they are using our Box Cap in a bright yellow to tie them all together.

Dress up your field tile with some playful mosaics. These colorful circles look like candy!

This basketweave mosaic has a little added spark with tiny colorful half by half dots dropped into the warm gold glaze of 1x2's. You can use as many colors as you like in our mosaics, in any combinations you can imagine. 

Brighten up your next project with some great bold color combinations and take advantage of the hundreds of colors we offer on all of our tile.