How to Use a Plaster Press Mold to Make a Cup
Using plaster press molds is a great way to make consistently sized pottery without slip casting or throwing on the …
Recent Posts
Going Local: How to Dig and Process Your Own Clay
There is an abundance of clay in my area, and I have occasionally thought about making work out of local …
Making Simple Molds for Slabware
My son starts fourth grade this year (how could that possibly be?!), so the rapid pace at which this summer …
How to Use CMC Gum to Make a Glaze Brushable and Stampable
CMC gum is a ceramic glaze additive that can be used to help improve brushability in glazes that are mixed …
How to Carve Low-Relief Surface Designs into Wet Clay
This post is all about carving into clay and the best tools and techniques for doing so. In this post, an …
An Introduction to Fuel-Burning Kilns
Fuels are organic and carbon based, they burn readily. Until recently, all kilns were fuel burning; even now when we …
Ten Basics of Firing Electric Kilns
Firing is the most critical part of the ceramics process because it is the one thing that makes clay durable, …
The Irresistible Surface: Layering Pottery Glazes and Trapping Carbon to Create Loosely Geometric Repeating Patterns
As we all know, in ceramics, trial and error is an integral part of the learning process – and often …
A Super Simple Analogy to Help You Understand Glaze Structure
Ceramic glazes consist of three main components: glass formers, fluxes, and refractories. If you can remember those, and familiarize yourself …
Using Vinyl Masking and Sandblasting to Create Textured and Patterned Wood-Fired Pottery
In this article from the Ceramics Monthly archives, David Bolton explains and demonstrates his use of vinyl sign masking to add …
