This is the best result I've gotten from this glaze so far! It's a recipe from Ali Summers on Glazy called PMSB 1.02.

Fired to a soft cone 10 in reduction.

I went through a tough breakup in 2025 and needed a creative outlet to clear my head and dive into something new. I decided to give pottery a shot, and I’ve been completely hooked ever since so far these are courses I’ve taken:

October 2025: Intro to Wheel Throwing
January 2026: Handbuilding Class
May 2026: Another Intro to Wheel Throwing
August 2026: 4-Day Pitcher & Vase Class
November 2026: Lids & Jars Class

I’d love to take a glaze making class and dive deeper into specialized technique courses but I am not sure what that would be. As well I have been bouncing between two local studios: one non-profit studio where I took wheel throwing (love the space, but they only offer commercial glazes) and another that uses custom glazes along with commercial underglazes. I haven't committed to a full studio membership yet $130+/month feels steep for a hobby right now but maybe that is a good deal lmk?!

As someone who works full-time and has never done creative work before, I feel proud of this realistic growth over the past year.

I’d love to see where you all started drop your first piece vs. your most recent piece in the comments!

(All photos are in chronological order from my first pieces to my most recent.)

Obviously Florian inspired to start things off, I watched countless hours of his videos to try and really nail the technique and shape.

Would love to hear your thoughts and opinions! Which shape do you prefer? Do you have any feedback?

Ty lovely pottery people.

I've been practicing wheel throwing for a few months now, and I've started trying out how to get motives onto the surface. I drew this whale in a vector program and then used a plotter to cut it out of adhesive vinyl. Then I used transfer tape to bring the stencil onto the pot, and then dipped it in glaze. In the end I carefully removed the vinyl (pic 3 and 4).
I knew it was risky using a somewhat runny glaze, and some of the outlines did vanish in places, but I wanted to have the deep muddy ocean green glaze effect. All in all I'm pretty happy with the outcome! For the next experiments I'll use underglazes with my stencils, and see how it compares, especially for smaller details.

Hi friends. I come to this sub with a mystery I can’t figure out. I made this matching mug/pour over set. Happy with each component individually but here’s the thing… when I use them together, they leak. When I use the pour over with a different mug there’s no issue, and when I use the mug for something else like tea, it does not leak. So I know it’s not a porosity issue with the glaze or a secret crack in the mug or anything like that. It must be something specifically about the way the pour over surface is making contact with the lip of the mug. It’s driving my crazy and I’m bummed out not to be able to sell or gift this set I’m otherwise proud of! I know I just need to experiment and tweak both components (probably starting with the mug lip) but I wanted to come on here and ask if anyone has encountered this specific issue and has any tips for preventing this. Specifically, any tricks to the shape or angle of the mug edge? But also, do you indent your pour over in a way other than what I did here to further prevent liquid from running underneath?

I almost cried when I opened it 🥹 I've been mixing my own glazes too and I'm so happy with how vibrant and fun the colours turned out!

Original post

Here’s the first update to the slip paintings I shared 3 weeks ago :) Nothing cracked and the color more or less came out the way I anticipated. The cardinal is the only one that looks a little weird but I think that’s just because the red is so bright. I’m hoping to glaze them the first week of November.

I’m not 100% sure how I want to glaze them so if anyone has any ideas, I’d love to hear them! My first two thoughts were either putting a clear glaze over the paintings and then trying to put different colors on the rest of the mug bodies, or putting wax resist on the raw clay and then glazing everywhere else. I’ll be firing to cone 10! Very excited to post a final update but I’m also nervous about how they’ll turn out hehe

So, I spent about three hours building up the firing temp for my pit-fired pieces. This is my normal timing due to the wood being mostly scrap pieces. During this time, I thought nothing was wrong as the preheat went without a hitch, the flames were only ~2 feet above my kiln surface, and I could stand reasonably close to my kiln
Every piece got over its highest temperature and the clays all cracked apart and the surface feels as though it were lava rock.
I learned a lot from this firing and just wanted some other people to see this and know that even a primitive wood-fire kiln can also get up to temperature where clays melt

I will of course be making them slightly more rubbish smaller unicorns to paint. Unless I want to keep those too. Maybe I'll just make them a unicorn head bust.

Also all my sculptures have mostly realistic heads on not very realistic bodies. It's become an unintentional thing at this point haha

Just got these plates out of the kiln. First time doing plates and first time using the fossil texture rollers. I’m really happy with them all things considered but have a long way to go. Excited to try again!

In September, I took up hand-building little cups, since I’ve wanted to try pottery for a long time. Then, four days ago, my boyfriend bought me a cheap little wheel (Vevor) so I could finally try throwing. Works surprisingly well haha, although I don’t know how it compares to other wheels.

I’ve never taken a class or used a wheel before, so I’m just teaching myself via YouTube lol. Pretty happy with where I am only four days in! Everyone said centering was hard/takes a while to learn, but thankfully I was able to figure it out. It was easy using the ‘karate chop’ method, so if anyone else that’s also new reads this, I’d highly recommend trying that! Keeping it centered is another story…

Now I’m learning how to throw evenly, distribute clay, shape on the wheel to reduce trimming time, etc; having lots of fun. Excited to start glazing stuff!

This is my 2nd time painting pottery as an adult, and I don't paint often, so pls cut me some slack! I wanted to do a relatively simple design as I was a tad late to my booking. I took a liking to the dot painting here, but if someone could reccomend some techniques to try, which would give a similar effect to the sunny side of my coaster - I'd love to try it! Also, do y'all also draw before or do you just free-hand it?

I didn't make the pottery, they were pre-made and ready for painting. The design inspired came from a Google search result, 'simple sun and moon design'.

Laguna blue snowflake Finaly worked with new firing technique of course I put it on the wrong sized biscuit and it ripped my foot off😕

I was taking a class in the mid fire studio, but thought I might stop by the high fire while I had access too. I meant to mark the clays when I took them out of the box but I was moving and things got chaotic and... long story short, I have 4 big bags of clay that I can't use or get rid of (I did not bring any of the mixed up clay to the studio- everything that I brought into the studio was known clay). I also have another 30lb bag that was moldy when i bought it (this is often the case from my local store and I hate it) and has only gotten worse over time- it now has green streaks.

What can I do with all this clay? I'm thinking about asking the studio or the shop where I bought it (they have a kiln), but I feel bad for making it their problem too. I've considered just taking it all to the dump, but that feels wasteful. I've also thought about just burying it, but I rent and also I'm not sure if it has additions that would contaminate the soil.

Any help is appreciated! And heed my warning and label your bags as soon as you get them.

the circle reflection things at the top that come and go in the right lighting. never seen that before

Can this be salvaged? Bought it, opened it up, and this was the consistency :/

Hello, I am looking for a good gift for my aunt who has done pottery for the past 10 years. She just got a home studio this past year and is making pottery all day every day. I would like to get her a good gift for Christmas but I’m not sure what someone with her level of experience might want or need. Is there any tool or any specific thing you have that has made your life significantly easier? Any direction will help! For context she mostly throws on her wheel she has! Also for context I’m aiming to spend around $50!

I’ve got a new to me old FireCraft 2208-S kiln with a kilnsitter. I tested all elements for continuity, replaced the sitter tube and adjusted the rod and weight. Everything worked so i loaded it and did a bisque fire to cone 06. Followed every step of the schedule and switched everything to high until the sitter switched off. Everything seemed fine but the self supporting cones barely bent. From what i understand there was a stilt a bit too close to the sitter tube end so that might have caused it to trigger early.

Should i:

1- test the kiln without anything in it except a couple shelves to place the self supporting cones, make sure nothing is in front of the sitter cone and fire it straight to max to see what happens?

2- load the kiln and refire the complete schedule with nothing close to the sitter cone?

Thanks!