Pottery Making Illustrated Articles (Simple)

While examining the evolution of my ceramic work over the past few years, it’s very easy for me to trace a stylistic shift in my ceramic work back to my love of quilting patterns and Islamic tilework.

I began my ceramic arts career as a thrower making functional wares, beginning with my first pottery class years ago in Colorado. Porcelain was my clay of choice, and my goal was to get thinner, highe

Sometimes a commercial underglaze straight from the container is exactly the color you need. But what happens when it isn’t? What if mahogany brown is the right color, but not the right value?

After years of enjoying washing fruit in a handmade, thrown berry bowl, I thought it would be a fun challenge to create an updated version of this form. Often, I find myself needing an extra hand in t

There is more than one way to approach drawing and painting on clay. You can think about it in terms of imposing and relinquishing control. In one approach, the artist intuitively responds to the surf

Ideas for art making don’t always come out of the blue; often they’re developed from visual, contextual, and material investigation.

Wish you had an extruder for a few projects here and there, but don’t need one for full-time use? If you’re going to use your extruder mostly for coils, handles, and other small, solid forms, you don’

A large serving platter comes in handy for a variety of entertaining needs. My wife and I love to use them for family dinners and entertaining guests who visit the pottery. I’m especially proud that a

I have a long history of using sculptural glazes with frowned upon or, more appropriately what I call “use with caution” materials, such as lithium carbonate and barium carbonate. These wonderful text

Many ceramic villages in Japan are known for the durable, practical, and beautiful tableware that they’ve been making for centuries. They developed interesting and practical throwing techniques in ord

I have always admired images of ancient vessels from Japan and Korea that were constructed and decorated using paddles. Wanting to diversify my approach to decorating my own work, I recently started u

The dragonfly was always a beautiful and mysterious creature to me in my childhood. Seeing this rare insect, would certainly make my day! Dragonflies symbolize prosperity, good luck, strength, peace,

Before finding pottery I studied textiles and embroidery in college. The love of ornamentation, decoration, and attention to detail that I learned from textiles continues to offer inspiration in my ce

I first became interested in handbuilding while taking Gail Kendall’s workshop at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine. At the time, I was working mostly on the wheel with porcelain and I t

For me, one of the most challenging parts of making pottery is determining how to decorate my work. If the form is complicated, a simple glaze solution usually works best. If the form is simple, my po

A little over a year ago a happy accident resulted in my work going in a new direction. A painter by training, I had been using clay as a canvas for my more illustrative work until a deadline and an a

I grew up looking at Japanese lacquerware, which is now a source of inspiration for creating patterns and decoration on my work. Emphasizing pattern over form has been a motivating drive in my work. S

January is my favorite month of the year, although I’m not a fan of winter temperatures or bleak landscapes.

Pottery Illustrated's Placement of Spouts and Handles.

One of the characteristics of terra sigillata is the uniform opaque color created when it’s applied in multiple layers. As a result, this uniform color can flatten the volume of a given form or, conve