When I started to make pottery from home, I really just made it up as I went along. On route, I encountered a few practical issues that I had not anticipated. So, I thought it would be helpful to write a simple guide on how to make pottery at home. To help you avoid some …
One of the first pieces of pottery I made in pre-school involved melting marbles in pottery. However, mixing glass with ceramics is not just for kid’s projects. It is a technique much used by potters and can create lovely results in a few simple steps. To melt marbles in pottery, make a small shallow dish …
Melting Marbles in Pottery – Pretty Ways to Fuse Glass onto Clay Read More »
The first time I saw marbled clay I was intrigued and I wanted to know how it was done. It’s a beautiful way of blending colors on your pottery. So, I wanted to write about the different ways you can make marbled pottery. It’s really pretty simple. You can marble pottery by either coloring the …
How to Make Marbled Pottery – 4 Easy Ways to Marble Clay Read More »
Finding that your glaze has run off your pottery and onto the kiln shelf is not unusual. Especially if you are just learning to glaze your potter, or using an unfamiliar glaze. Most potters have a kiln shelf or two that have been damaged by running glaze. In practice, it is not ideal – for …
How to Get Glaze Off Kiln Shelves? – Easy Glaze Removal Read More »
It is simple to make colored clay, and the results can be really stunning. It is one of my favorite ways of decorating my pottery. You can make lovely marbled agateware or nerikomi from the clay you have colored. To make colored clay, you need to add a stain or oxide to your clay. Stains …
How to Make Colored Clay – 3 Easy Methods with Images Read More »
I love using colored slip to decorate pottery. It has a velvety finish that you don’t get with most underglaze. If you want to make your own decorating slip, you’re probably wondering how much stain to use in colored slip? How much stain to use in colored slip, depends on a few factors. They …
How Much Stain to Use in Colored Slip? – Making a Test Tile Read More »
Colored slip is a great way to decorate your ceramics. But it can be expensive to buy, and you may not find exactly the color that you want. So perhaps you are wondering how to make colored slip. To make colored slip, you mix a powdered oxide or stain with clay slip. The amount of …
How to Make Colored Slip – 3 Easy Ways to Color Clay Slip Read More »
So, you’ve just thrown your first pot on the wheel and you are feeling proud. But how on earth do you get it off the wheel without squashing it? This post is all about how to remove a pot from the wheel without damaging your pottery. To remove a pot from the wheel, tidy up …
How to Remove a Pot from the Wheel – Without Crushing It! Read More »
If you want to start a pottery hobby, it can be hard to know where to start. Like all new ventures, it can feel like there is an overwhelming amount of information to learn. But take heart, you only need to take one step at a time. I have put together this handy list of …
12 Top Tips to Start a Pottery Hobby – A Beginners Guide Read More »
Plaster hump molds for clay pottery are relatively expensive to buy. But they are extremely easy to make. And you can make beautiful pottery with a hump mold, very easily. Here is how to make a plaster hump mold for clay. Plus, how to make a lovely drape mold pottery bowl with your DIY mold. …
How to Make a Plaster Hump Mold for Clay – Easy Drape Molds Read More »
Sgraffito pottery is really quite simple to make. However, it can be extremely satisfying and lovely to look at. Like most techniques in pottery, there are several ways of approaching sgraffito. When I became interested in it my first question was how do you make sgraffito pottery? These are three of the sgraffito techniques I …
How do You Make Sgraffito Pottery? – 3 Easy Fun Techniques Read More »
The Pottery Wheel is supported by its readers. If you click one of my links, I may earn a commission. I’m also a participant of the Amazon Affiliate Program and will make a commission from qualifying purchases. This helps me keep the website running. Thank you, I really appreciate your support! When you think of …
4 Ways to Make Pottery Without a Wheel – Hand Building Clay Read More »
There are a lot of different accounts of how to make terra sigillata available. Some of these methods seem more precise than others. There also seems to be quite a bit of conflicting information. So, I did some research into the various recommendations made by different potters and cherry-picked the best suggestions. I tested these …
How to Make Terra Sigillata | Easy Peasy Terra Sig Read More »
This article is a step-by-step guide on how to make a raku kiln. I had made raku pottery in workshops and under the guidance of other potters. But I had yet to take the plunge on my own if you’ll pardon the pun. I decided it was time to take that step, so I only …
How to Make a Raku Kiln – An Easy Step by Step Guide Read More »
There is quite a bit of information online about how to make raku pottery. However, I recently built my first raku kiln. And in the process of planning my first raku firing, I realized that there were practical things I didn’t know. For example, I’d never used a propane torch before. So, I found myself …
How to Attach a Burner Torch to a Propane Tank for a Raku Kiln Read More »
Pottery clay starts to dry out as soon as it comes out of its plastic bag. As it dries, clay particles form clay dust. It is unavoidable that if you use clay you will be exposed to some amount of clay dust. As potters have become increasingly aware of environmental hazards, they have wanted to …
How to Clean Up Clay Dust – Keep Your Pottery Space Safe Read More »
Raku firing is quite different from regular firing in a gas or electric kiln. If you are new to raku, this may have left you wondering if raku glazing techniques are different too. When I started out in raku, I was left with similar questions. I wanted to know exactly how to glaze raku pottery …
How to Glaze Raku Pottery – Glazing and Underglazing Raku Read More »
There are two occasions when you might want to clean raku pottery. If you have made or bought a piece of raku you might want to know how to keep it dust-free. Or, you may want to know how to clean off the carbon residue left from the firing process. This article is mainly about …
Clear glaze is often applied over underglaze decoration to protect pottery, make it non-porous and help underglaze colors pop. It can also be used as a way of bringing out the natural beauty of a particular clay body. However, even a little bit of cloudiness can really detract from the overall look of your pottery. …
Why Is My Clear Glaze Cloudy? – How To Prevent Milky Glaze Read More »
Underglaze decoration is incredibly versatile and when combined with a clear glaze can create beautiful results. I have found that after applying underglaze with painstaking care, it can smudge and run easily. So, I decided to find out if there was a way I could stop underglaze smudging. This is what I found out…. …
Underglaze Smudging and Bleeding – How To Prevent It Read More »