Pottery blog

A practical troubleshooting guide for early pottery frustrations like air bubbles, S-cracks, heavy bottoms, and wobbly walls.

Simple hand-built and wheel-thrown pottery project ideas for beginners who want confidence-building wins in the first month.

Five practical ways to practice pottery between studio classes using sketching, mental reps, planning, and simple hand exercises.

What pottery is, how a pot moves from wet clay to finished piece, and how to start without feeling lost.

The essential beginner pottery tools worth buying now, plus the gear you can wait on so you save money and skip the overwhelm.

A clear beginner pottery progression from pinch pot to mug, with skills to master at each step before moving on.

Ten focused pottery wheel exercises for centering, coning, cylinders, off-the-hump cups, and wobble diagnosis to sharpen technique fast.

A practical centering guide covering posture, sticking clay down, coning, pressure, and how to know when clay is truly centered.

Learn how to throw an even pottery cylinder with better pulls, floor compression, rim care, and wall consistency.

Throw a functional pottery mug body on the wheel, then pull and attach a handle that lasts through daily use.

Learn how to throw a lighter pottery bowl with better curves, floor planning, collapse prevention, and trimming awareness.

Learn pottery wheel throwing from the ground up, including posture, wheel speed, hand placement, centering, and water control.

Diagnose why your clay will not center on the pottery wheel, with ten practical fixes for posture, water, wedging, speed, and wobble.

Starting clay weights for small, medium, and large bowls, and why depth and width change how much clay you need.

Starting clay weights for common mug sizes, plus a free estimator so you can plan matching sets and save notes in Claybook.

Starting clay weights for bud vases to tall bottles, height-to-weight ratios, and tips for enclosed forms and sectional throwing.

Learn how clay shrinks from wet to fired, how to work backward from finished size, and how to use Claybook's free shrinkage calculator.

Compare stoneware and porcelain for throwing, durability, glaze color, and beginner friendliness so you can pick the right clay body.

Bookmarkable starting clay weights for 50+ pottery forms, from mugs and bowls to plates, vases, and handbuilding projects.

A clear beginner guide to earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain, including firing ranges, strength, and how to choose a clay body.

Fifty inspiration pairings and layering recipes using generic glaze-type language, plus a simple way to log what actually works in your studio.

Clear guidance on glaze thickness for brushing and dipping, plus how to compare coats with simple test pieces.

A practical system for making, labeling, firing, and reading glaze test tiles, plus how to keep a digital log you can search later.

A calm, practical path from bisqueware to glaze-fired pots, covering dipping, brushing, pouring, wax resist, and safety basics.

What glaze crawling looks like, the most common beginner causes, how to prevent it, and how it differs from crazing and pinholing.

Build a weekly pottery practice plan with clear goals, volume tracking, and simple app logging so progress survives busy seasons.

A stage-by-stage checklist for noting pottery projects at wet, leather hard, bisque, glazed, and fired stages so you can repeat what works.

Why Claybook is a strong pottery journal and tracking app for projects, clay weights, glaze notes, lessons, practice, and studio tools.

Compare notebooks, spreadsheets, and pottery apps for glaze tracking, and build a searchable system that connects test tiles to real pots.

Why potters forget clay weights and glaze recipes, what belongs in a project log, and how a simple journal habit speeds up progress.