I use several different kinds of stoneware, depending on what I want in the finished piece. Red stoneware gives an earthy tone to the glazes. White stoneware allows for clearer and more vibrant hues in the finished work. T3M is a stoneware with manganese in the clay body which gives the fired work a speckled quality.
White stoneware ready for centering
Some of the steps are the same, regardless of whether I throw on the wheel or build by hand, some are different. In either case, the potter must:
Prepare the clay
Shape the clay
Fire the clay to its bisque state
Glaze the clay
Fire the clay a second time for a finished, non-porous piece
Here you can see the initial throwing of a cylinder. Nearly all wheel thrown shapes begin here.
And here is what this cylinder became: a mug body. These need to dry firmly enough to trim away any excess clay, shape the foot, and attach handles.
On the left are handles, drying. In the middle, in process of attaching a handle to a trimmed mug. On the right are finished mugs drying. The pieces must be bone dry before their first trip in the kiln. The BISQUE kiln drives the remaining water from the clay and prepares it to absorb glaze.
Now the fired mugs (both thrown and handbuilt) are ready to glaze.
Here the glazed mugs are waiting for their second trip through the kiln. A fascinating thing about glazing: glaze is not like paint. It cannot be mixed to create colors in the way that blue and yellow paint makes green. The colors of glaze are created through a chemical reaction that has little to do with what the colors look like here.
Here are the glazed mugs. They are fully vitrified (no longer porous), dishwasher, microwave, and food safe.
