Pottery Making Illustrated Articles (Simple)

Faceting and altering your pots while they are still wet on the wheel can be a fun and rewarding way to add interest to a simple form.

My dessert-dish forms are inspired by mid-century glass ice-cream dishes that I encountered when I worked at a retro pharmacy and soda fountain while in high school.

For some years, I have been keen on repurposing and borrowing shapes from once-used to-go boxes, commercial food packaging, vintage jello molds, and secondhand pottery for my work.

However, there are times when a customer wants a mug that holds exactly the amount a coffee maker makes, a fermenting crock that holds a gallon, or even a cremation urn with a specific capacity.

As you operate your pottery business, there might be times when cash flow is good and other times where it’s slow. In order to have a steady, reliable cash flow, an artist should invest those extra funds.

Recently, I have seen a growing interest in slip casting. One of the great things about slip casting is that you can create a mold based on your own design, cast the piece, and implement the process into your work to create more consistent results.

So, before you set the table for tonight’s dinner, pull up a chair and settle into this issue of Pottery Making Illustrated.

Branding is the consistent way a business or person represents themselves to the public. The overall visual look of a brand should delineate one brand from another, much the same way one artist’s work looks different from another’s.

Illustrations of Potluck Dishes

A wide shallow bowl lends the potter a large surface area for expressive decoration. When in use, it can easily function as a focal point for a kitchen table top, the locus of offering and the center

I’ve always been drawn to pots with clean, elegant lines that can act as canvases, and I enjoy pairing them with glazes that mimic biological processes or the natural world. I spent several years work

My wrap vessels were inspired by my love of color and nerikomi, the Japanese technique of building forms with colored clay. My wrap vessel stemmed from my exploration with creating wrap-around rings a

Using nature as my inspiration, I infuse Chinese meaning into my pieces by celebrating the symbolism behind particular animals, plants, and flowers. In my current exploration, I seek to find balance b

While my work thus far has been mostly functional, I have always had a love for stand-alone pieces that are meant to be on display, such as a planter, fruit bowl, or vase. I also like to challenge mys

In order to adapt my thinking from the repetition of daily studio work to exploration mode, I need a shift of experience. Summer seems to be a particularly experimental time of year for me. The days a

I am inspired by vibrant, distinctive, and complex patterns, such as Islamic art patterns. As the viewer’s eye is captured by bold symmetry and an interplay of color, the potter may also experience a

Using the right tool for the job is always a good idea, but in ceramics, using the right brush is critical for creating certain marks on your pots. You’d have a difficult time trying to use a short fl

Everything comes with a price tag, including artwork. The artistic process is built on skills, education, experience, and creativity, all of which take time to develop. That said, outside your studio,

If you are looking for inspiration, the projects and techniques in the following pages have you covered. This issue delivers new ideas in glazing, mark making, Chinese brush strokes, stamping, masking

For me, making mugs is like eating comfort food. When the pandemic first hit, I found myself returning again and again to the mug form. When making a mug, there is a familiarity between maker and clay