Category Archives: Pottery

This is probably the piece of pottery I am most proud of so far. It's a bean pot, with a lid. The lid fits perfectly, and the glaze looks really awesome in person. It's really hard to get a good photo - the glaze is so shiny that pictures never really come out. But trust me, it's cool. :)

Finally had a batch of glazed pots come out of the kiln and I was happy with every piece. Usually there are at least a few duds or mistakes in every load - but this time they all looked great!

I found a nice glaze combo I really like - if I remember right (I have it written down, but not near at hand at the moment) it's Amaco's Toasted Sage over Laguna's Turkish Amber. The sage becomes a cool blue-green, and the combo with the amber leads to some nice blending effects. The one in the front has the sage on both the inside and the outside, and the one immediately behind it has the sage just on the inside (and a little bit on the rim).

I've done a whole bunch of test tiles so far - and it's a good thing I did! Out of all of these tests, there are probably only about a half-dozen that I really like and would use on a full-size piece. I've got another batch of test tiles in the kiln right now, which needs to cool down for a few more hours before I can open it. Hopefully there are some good ones in there, too!

I've been throwing lots more pottery since the last time I posted about it. But as I've been burned several times now with glazes that didn't come out the way I wanted, I decided not to glaze any of this stuff yet. I'm going to make and glaze a whole bunch of test tiles, to see which glaze combos come out nice. That's a lot easier than spending a lot of time making a pot I like, only to have to the glaze look bad and essentially 'waste' the pot.

Just a pictorial update on how the pottery is going. The glazes are starting to look a lot better. I'm still learning how to be more consistent in getting the forms I want, but the practice is definitely helping.

We've finally gotten the hang of glazing - this is the first batch of stuff we'd be willing to let somebody else see. :) This was a random collection of stuff - there are several bowls there, plus a pie plate, a couple of small dessert plates, a couple of planters, and a mortar and pestle.

Lori and I got a pottery wheel over Christmas, and I've been learning to throw some pots. I've always wanted to learn, after getting a small taste of it in high school. I'm just getting started, so nothing looks particularly amazing yet. But I'm starting to get a little more consistent. We've yet to fire or glaze anything, but expect more photos of that soon.