A Beginners Guide to Making Pottery

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There are many websites which explain, step by step, how to make pottery, and where to buy pottery supplies such as a pottery wheel, electric kiln, and pottery glazes. Pottery has to be one of the easiest hobbies and forms of self expression to get involved with, as well as one of the quickest art forms to pick up by an amateur.

If you are interested in learning how to make pottery, there are some things about the art which you should know. Let us take a look at the history and the facts of ceramics making and pottery…

1. Pottery, in its earliest forms, were made from clay heated at very low temperatures in either pit fires or open bonfires. Pottery is one of the oldest forms of expression (after symbol making), and it is still a widely applied form of art. Anthropologists have learned so much about ancient cultures through their pottery.

2. Before learning how to make pottery, one may be interested to know that there are three main types of pottery. Earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain are the different materials which pottery are made of. Earthenware clay is often opaque and porous in nature, stoneware is also opaque, but impermeable, while porcelain is relatively translucent and elastic.

3. One learning how to make pottery should know what ceramics are. A ceramic in an inorganic, nonmetallic solid that is made by the process of heat and subsequent cooling. This is what is applied to the clay that gives it a color and sheen.

4. Clay is not pottery. Learning how to make pottery, one will be told that pottery is only made once clay (and ceramic material, if desirable) is fired in a kiln.

5. A kiln, therefore, is an essential ingredient in learning how to make pottery. Kilns are heated up in a variety of ways. Some involve burning wood, coal, or gas. Others are heated by electricity. Wood and coal should be used with care, though, because smoke and ash which can result from coal and wood may affect the appearance of pottery.

I hope that this list has helped those of you looking into how to make pottery. My intent is that you have a decent beginners learning guideline, so you know what to look for, a but of the history, and the different kinds of clay to choose from. Check out this site for more. Read more here.

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