Make pottery at home
This curriculum takes a home ceramicist from zero clay experience through confident hand-building and wheel-throwing, finishing with the knowledge to glaze, fire, and develop a personal creative voice. Each stage builds directly on the last — vocabulary and muscle memory come first, then technique depth, then finishing and artistic independence.
Foundations: Clay, Tools & First Touch
New to itUnderstand what clay is, how it behaves, and gain enough vocabulary and confidence to begin working with it safely at home.
▸ Study plan for this stage
Pace: 2–3 weeks, ~15–20 pages/day — John Britt's book is dense with technical charts and glaze recipes, so a slower, exploratory pace is recommended for beginners; focus on the introductory chapters covering glaze chemistry basics, material categories, and cone ranges before diving into specific recipes.
- What clay and glazes are made of: silica, alumina, and flux as the three foundational building blocks of ceramic materials
- Firing temperature ranges and what 'mid-range' (cone 4–6) means in the context of home and studio pottery
- The role of heat in transforming raw clay and glaze materials into vitrified, glass-like surfaces
- Basic glaze vocabulary introduced by Britt: opacity, matte vs. glossy, colorants, and surface texture
- How raw glaze ingredients (feldspars, carbonates, oxides) behave during the firing process
- Safety awareness: understanding which raw materials are hazardous and how to handle dry glaze chemicals responsibly at home
- Reading a glaze recipe: understanding percentages, unity molecular formula (UMF) as a concept, and why recipes are structured the way they are
- What are the three primary oxides that make up a glaze, and what role does each play?
- What does 'cone 6' mean, and why does firing temperature matter when choosing clay and glaze materials?
- According to Britt's introductory material, what is the difference between a matte and a glossy glaze at a chemical level?
- What safety precautions should a home ceramicist take when handling dry glaze materials like silica or barium carbonate?
- How is a glaze recipe structured, and what do the percentage numbers in a recipe represent?
- Why can't you simply use any glaze on any clay body — what must be compatible between the two?
- Glossary building: As you read Britt's introductory chapters, create a personal glossary of at least 20 new terms (e.g., flux, colorant, vitrification, cone, UMF) with definitions in your own words.
- Material scavenger hunt: Look up 5 common raw glaze ingredients Britt mentions (e.g., Custer feldspar, whiting, EPK kaolin) and find out where each one comes from naturally and what role it plays in a glaze.
- Recipe anatomy exercise: Pick any one glaze recipe from the book and break it down — list each ingredient, its percentage, and write one sentence about what that ingredient contributes to the fired result based on Britt's descriptions.
- Cone chart sketch: Draw or print a cone temperature chart covering cones 06 through 10 and annotate it with notes from Britt about what types of clay bodies and glazes are suited to each range.
- Safety audit: Using Britt's safety guidance, make a checklist of the protective equipment and ventilation requirements you would need to mix glazes at home, then assess your own space against it.
- Observation journal: If you have access to any fired ceramic object at home (a mug, bowl, tile), examine its surface and try to describe it using Britt's vocabulary — is it matte or glossy, opaque or translucent, smooth or textured? Write a short paragraph.
Next up: Mastering the foundational language of clay bodies, firing temperatures, and glaze chemistry from Britt gives the reader the essential vocabulary and material awareness needed to confidently move into hands-on forming techniques, where understanding how clay behaves in the kiln directly informs how you build and finish pieces.
SKIP — replacing with correct beginner title below.