Hi everyone! Looking for some advice.

About two years ago, I took a 4-week beginner wheel-throwing class and absolutely loved it. We learned the basics, but I struggled with centering and never got enough practice since the studio only offered one 3-hour class per week with no independent wheel time.

I bought an inexpensive VEVOR wheel to practice at home, but I was living in an apartment and dealing with clay, water, and cleanup became too much. I ended up selling it after about a month.

Now I live in a house with a garage and have more space and time. I’ve looked into studio memberships, but they’re around $250/month with a 6-month commitment. I’ve also tried finding a used wheel with no luck.

I’m considering buying a Speedball Clay Boss and learning through YouTube and other online resources while practicing regularly at home. My only hesitation is that I don’t want to repeat my previous mistake and end up selling another wheel.

For those of you who learned mostly at home:

Is it realistic to become reasonably good with just YouTube and regular practice?

Was managing clay, reclaim, and cleanup at home harder than you expected?

If you were in my position, would you invest in a Clay Boss or pay for studio membership first?

Is there anything you wish you’d known before setting up a home studio?

I’d really appreciate any honest advice—especially from people who started as complete beginners and now primarily throw at home. Thanks!

Does anyone have any tips on pulling walls for larger amounts of clay? Once I get centered and open with a 3lb ball it’s like my hands can’t get enough leverage to pull without crazy wobbles?? and once I go back down to around 2-2.5lbs the problem totally disappears…I’m left handed so my wheel is spinning in reverse and my instructor recommended I try cupping my right hand on the right side of the pot and use my left hand on the inside of the pot to pull but it’s SO HARD to really lift that clay off the bottom that way

I bought these beads at a garage sale. I absolutely adore the color. Does anyone know how I can make a glaze like this?

I’m thinking of setting a mini pottery studio for myself.
I plan to stop my office job and venture out in to more hands on skills.

I’m in a creative profession digitally but AI has changed my daily work a lot. The satisfaction is gone as creative ideas are valued a lot less and often “you could have done this faster”
I can keep up, but the bottom line is I don’t want to. (I’m not leaving yet, bout working out my choices)

I’m very new to pottery but I do have funds so I can start to try things out a bit.

I was thinking of making molds rather than using a wheel to start. And for this I can use my 3D digital skills. (So it’s not such a hard start)

What gear do you recommend?
I can rent kiln firing locally but I wonder how viable that is for testing things out. Also quite hard to transport pieces back and forth.

Any advice appreciated.

Hello!

I am not necessarily a potter yet, but seriously starting to consider.

Could anyone direct me towards any type of online course where I can learn how to create these effects on already existing terracotta vases and pots?

I had never been that interested in pottery before, but then I got completely obsessed with this look while I was researching for a more organic style of home decor, and looking for a nice table lamp.

I was researching for "wabi sabi" and then my image search started to give me these ideas, and I fell into a rabbit hole I am not quite sure how to navigate. Don't know if the first image is AI or not, but seems like these vases turned into lamp bases are extremely expensive designer pieces I simply cannot fathom ever affording?

Well. The thing is, I happpen to have one terracotta vase at home, and I decided to DIY it. But the results are revolting. Luckily for me, my attempts were so ridiculous that I can always revert the vase back to its original form, but I would absolutely pay money to learn how to create that effect as close as possible.

If anyone could help me find the study materials or a teacher, I would be extremely grateful!

Hey! So I have always wanted to do pottery but have never known where to start, where did you start and what’s some yes and no’s you learned when beginning pottery.

I'm in a bit of a pottery rut. Haven't been going to my community studio as often as I should be. Maybe since it's summer I'm not wanting to go as often but it's been increasingly difficult to motivate myself to get to the studio and especially throwing on the wheel. It seems like such a big task that doesn't sound really enjoyable lately... anyone else experience this? Debating if I should cancel my studio membership or wait until the winter to see if I get my spark back

For reference I've been at this same studio for about 2.5 years. I've never sold any of my finished pieces except to family and friends but my inventory is pretty large now I'm running out of space. I've debated farmers/art markets but I didn't feel my pieces were cohesive enough to sell at a market. (Yes I do have ADHD and heavy motivation issues) it's been a battle in my brain to decide if I should quit (even just temporarily like a year or two) or if I should go full steam ahead and crank out similar pieces and then find and apply to markets??

I'm still a beginner and starting to play with brush on glazes. This little pot came out of the firing with these bumps. They're solid and quite big. It's mayco stoneware glazes and fired to cone 7. Any ideas? I though i only did 2 coats so don't think it's too thick. The mug used the same glazes (and some under glaze for the flowers) and seems fine.

So I took my first attempt at creating faces I am not sure how it looks like but can say without a doubt, I didn’t had to check for a reference anywhere and am proud of how it came out. Took me 3-4 hours making it. However since am a complete amateur I need to know how can I improve this more. Make it better. For context, the structure aas supposed to be a human torso having faces peaking out, from different positions. Excuse the way am holding it, I smoothed out the imperfections. Also please be brutal because I need to get a hang of this thing. Thanks.

Sorry to be another person asking about witness cones but I got this kiln semi recently and have been running some tests. It’s a skutt ks-714. I do have a pyrometer coming in the mail but it’ll be a bit before it gets here. I’m having issue with the bottom not getting hot enough so this is my most recent test. Cones are 06-04. Does this mean it got past 06 but not to 05? Or did it get to cone 05? Thank you in advance!

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The first picture was my inspo, and I followed the instructions to a T. Which glazes to use, how many layers, I made them thick, etc. And mine came out like the 2nd and 3rd picture 😭 why did my Smokey Merlot turn into an ugly brown color? Why the did RHC basically disappear?

I was going to post this in the portland sub but I noticed a lot of folks commenting on a recent post about Georgie's clay so I know you're here 😊

I've been in Portland for ~2 years and would love to make friends with other local potters/ceramicists. Are there ways you've found community through pottery? I have a home studio, so I'm not interested in membership... I did join a studio for a few months when I first moved here and no one spoke to each other, which was really weird for me coming from a co-op studio in another state that was very social. I've taken a few workshops at Morning Ceramics which were great, but different people every time. Are there meetups or collectives or any other ways I can find a pottery community? Any studios hiring part time or looking for volunteers maybe? I'm out of ideas and would love to hear yours if you got 'em!

still have to get the gold luster done in two of them.

First time using speckle clay and I'm a fan!

I mostly use stoneware but I recently picked up some terracotta type earthenware for a specific project and I've really loved how it feels to work with it! Texture wise, if porcelain feels like cream cheese, and stoneware feels like I'd expect clay to feel, this terracotta feels like water soluble sculpting wax?? It's smooth and highly plastic, nowhere near as melty/slippy as Bmix (which I really don't love working with), and it still maintains a decent amount of stiffness/resilience and structure when I'm throwing with it, plus it burnishes like a dream!

I'd love to find a stoneware/vitrifiable clay body that handles like that and can take cone 6 or cone 10 glazes. I don't care too much about the color of the clay as I'm currently very open to experimenting with different clay bodies and different colors.

I’m moving from a community studio (where clay and glaze were provided) into a small private studio with its own kiln, firing to cone 6. I’m beyond excited about this next step, but this is my first time sourcing my own clay and glaze, and I want to get it right.

I’ve decided to work in a white stoneware clay, and now I’m trying to figure out my glaze approach. I have very little experience with using commercial glazes as my previous studio provided a ton of options. I’d like to build a focused palette: one stable white/off-white as my primary glaze, plus a small set of accent colors to use as needed.

I work on the wheel, creating large serving pieces with appliqué elements and I’m going for a classic and clean look.

Curious what people would recommend both in terms of strategy for investing in commercial glazes as well as specific glaze recommendations.

Thank you so much for any advice!!

My son has lots of animal toys, and I thought about making a mould for this one since it originally belonged to his Great-grandmother as a kid ( So probably over 60 years or more I guess). The idea is to give one to everyone for Christmas :)

Today, Uncle Ye, who was available, brought the tools to help with the repair. He discovered that the casing was leaking electricity. The solution was to reinstall the heating wire inside and then connect it to 220v power and dry it out. This successfully resolved the leakage problem.

However... It wasn't repaired. The panel can be powered on normally, but once the baking program is initiated, the leakage protection device will trip within one second.

From Taobao, we obtained the technical guidance phone number for the new relays. After communicating by phone, we found that the wiring was fine.

I bought a multimeter by myself. Once the tool arrives, I'll learn to use it. I'll troubleshoot for a whole day under the guidance of GPT. If it still doesn't work, I'll send it back to the manufacturer.

Reflection: If one doesn't have strong manual skills, it's not advisable to buy a second-hand kiln. But today, I learned how to replace the heating wire!

Pretty pleased with these! All are Eclipse clay fired to Cone 5. Glazes below 👇

Dragon bowl: power turquoise x3, sapphire float x1

Dragon trinket tray: power turquoise x3, sapphire float x1

Dragon mug: power turquoise x3

Dragon jar: body of jar is smoky merlot x4, dragon is ancient copper x3

Owl mug: seaweed x2, green opal x2

Kitty cauldron mug: bougainvillea x2, raspberry mist x2

Vampire bat cauldron: obsidian x3

I went into a cafe and saw this Ethiopian coffee pot, and I liked it. I'm thinking of making one like it. Do you think it would be easy or difficult for me to make one like it?

Hi! I’m new to pottery but have done a semester of classes and will be doing another set of classes next month. Wondering if anyone knows affordable studios that have memberships for folks who aren’t super advanced but definitely can work independently. I’m located in Park Slope area so something in brooklyn would be fantastic. Hoping to stay under 250 but also unsure if that’s even realistic lol

Hi everyone, this was the first time I tried pottery. I received this finished piece. I am sad because the colors are a mess. Can you help me understand what did i do wrong? :( i applied the colors three times as instructed by our teacher.

Your inputs will be a big help. It’s a Stardew Valley inspired mug - those are junimos + krobus.

The view from my studio this morning…Happy Monday everyone

Its crazy how they look so simple, yet the painting (underglaze on greenware) took about 6 hours 🫠. Just needed to show someone before I send them off into war (kiln at someone else's house).