How Is Pottery Made? From Clay to a Finished Piece
Updated: Sep 23
Every piece of pottery begins with clay. Before that clay becomes a finished bowl, mug, vase or sculptural form, it goes through a series of stages: preparation, forming, refining, drying, firing, glazing and firing again.
If you've ever wondered how pottery is made, the process varies depending on how the piece is formed. Wheel-thrown pottery is centered and shaped on the potter's wheel, while handbuilt pottery may be created using slabs, coils, pinching or combinations of techniques. Both eventually move through many of the same stages on the way from workable clay to finished ceramic.
1. Preparing the Clay
Every piece begins with preparing the clay. Potters “wedge” clay by repeatedly pressing, folding and turning it to remove trapped air, even out its moisture and align the clay particles. This creates a more uniform, workable mass of clay and prepares it for forming on the potter’s wheel or by hand.
There are several ways to wedge clay. The spiral-wedged clay shown here gets its distinctive shape from repeatedly rotating and compressing the clay against the work surface.
2. Forming the Shape
Forming a vessel with a rib on the wheel. Handbuilding a wall vase with slab-rolled clay. Refining the walls of a wheel-thrown pot.
Once the clay is prepared, it can be formed on the potter’s wheel or by hand.
On the wheel, the clay is first centered so that it rotates evenly. The potter opens the centered clay and then uses pressure from both hands to pull the walls upward and shape the form. Changes in hand position and pressure can widen, narrow or curve the walls, turning the same basic cylinder into a bowl, mug, vase or other vessel.
Handbuilding works without a potter’s wheel. Clay can be pinched directly into shape, rolled into coils and joined together, or rolled into slabs that are cut, curved and assembled. These techniques can be used for both functional pottery and sculptural forms.
At this stage the clay is still soft and workable, so the form can continue to be changed, compressed, joined, textured or reshaped before it begins to dry.
3. Refining the Form
Trimming the foot of a pot. Adding a handle to a coil-built vase with slip. Tools used for trimming pottery.
Once a piece has been formed, it needs time to firm up before additional work can be done. At the leather-hard stage, the clay is no longer soft and easily distorted, but it still contains enough moisture to be trimmed, carved, joined or otherwise refined.
Wheel-thrown pieces can be returned to the wheel upside down so excess clay can be trimmed from the base and a foot can be formed. Depending on the piece, this may also be the time to attach a handle, add other clay elements, carve or texture the surface, or make adjustments to the form.
These aren't simply finishing touches. Trimming can change the weight, balance and proportions of a piece, while handles, attachments and surface treatments affect both how it functions and how it looks.
4. Drying and Bisque Firing
Before pottery can be fired, it must dry thoroughly, and how it dries matters.
As clay dries, water evaporates and the clay shrinks. If one part of a piece dries much faster than another, the different rates of shrinkage create stress in the clay. That can cause warping or cracking, particularly where sections of different thicknesses meet, such as an attached handle or the base of a thicker form. For that reason, pottery is often dried slowly and evenly rather than simply left exposed until it feels dry.
A piece that feels dry can still contain moisture within the clay. During firing, that remaining water turns to steam. If the kiln heats faster than the moisture can escape, the rapidly expanding steam can create enough pressure to crack or even break the piece.
Once the pottery is thoroughly dry, it goes through its first kiln firing, called the bisque firing. Bisque firing permanently transforms the clay into ceramic material while leaving it porous enough to absorb glaze.
Want to go deeper into what happens inside the kiln? Read Understanding Kiln Firing: From Bisque to Glaze.
5. Glazing
After bisque firing, the piece is ready for glaze.
Glaze can be dipped, poured, brushed or applied using other techniques. What looks like a bucket of liquid glaze before firing will be transformed by heat into a fired ceramic surface.
Color isn't the only consideration. The choice of glaze and how it is applied can emphasize the form, texture and surface decoration of a piece. Glazes can also behave differently depending on the clay body, firing atmosphere, application and placement in the kiln.
Dipping bisqued-ware into a glaze bucket with tongues. Glazed pots ready for the second firing. Pouring glaze into the inside of a bisqued clay mug.
6. The Glaze Firing
Handpainting a casserole. A slip glazed border on a bowl ready for firing. A composited pot with hand painted underglaze.
The glazed piece returns to the kiln for its second firing. During the glaze firing, the ceramic body continues to mature and the glaze melts and develops its finished surface.
At Throw Clay LA, most of our functional pottery is fired to Cone 6. Cone 6 doesn't simply describe a temperature; it measures heatwork, the combined effect of temperature and time during a firing.
7. Your Finished Piece
After the kiln has cooled enough to unload safely, the transformation is complete.
The clay that began as a soft, workable material is now a permanent ceramic object. The marks left by forming, trimming or refining the clay, along with surface decoration and glaze, record decisions made at different stages of the process.
And no two pieces need to be alike. That's one of the pleasures of handmade pottery. A ceramic piece can be a familiar functional object or a sculptural form, but its proportions, weight, surface and glaze reflect the person who made it.
Member Henry with his finished sake sets. Chattered pots out of the kiln. Handbuilt mugs from a One-Time Big Mugs class.
Learning How Pottery Is Made
There is a difference between experiencing the potter's wheel and learning to make a finished ceramic piece independently.
In a One-Time Potter's Wheel class at Throw Clay LA, beginners learn the fundamentals of throwing and make two pieces on the wheel. You choose your glaze, and our studio team handles the later finishing, glazing and firing so your pieces can be picked up after they've completed the process.
In a six-week pottery course, students have time to learn more of the process themselves. As their skills develop, they learn to throw, trim, make and attach handles, glaze their work and understand how each stage affects the finished piece.
Learning pottery means gradually understanding how all of these stages connect. Decisions made while preparing and forming the clay can affect trimming and drying; the clay body and surface affect glazing; and the firing ultimately determines how all of those choices come together in the finished piece.
About Throw Clay LA
Whether you’re curious to try pottery for the first time or ready to develop your skills, Throw Clay LA offers one-time pottery experiences, six-week Build Skills courses, and six-week Refine & Explore courses in wheel throwing and handbuilding at our studio in Downtown Los Angeles.
We also offer pottery workshops and private pottery events for groups, while studio memberships provide experienced potters with dedicated space and time to pursue their own work, along with access to studio equipment, glazes, firing services and free weekly Member Clinics.
