Mug made entirely in my home pottery studio featuring a combination of Spectrum Kimchi, Cinnamon Ripple, and Nori glazes fired in my garage kiln to cone 5 on a fast glaze setting. Signature added using underglaze and rice paper.

My Home Pottery Essentials

2025 was the year of pottery for me. I found a new hobby early in the year and began on a journey of discovery that I am still on today. Since starting the hobby, I have found a new outlet for creativity in a way that other mediums I have done in the past have not satisfied.  I had wanted to try this hobby for a long time but struggled to find a place to be able to learn. While I do have a community studio that I get my bisque fired at I have now started to make a lot of my pottery at home. Here are some of my essentials for getting started with pottery at home.

Slip and Clay

I first learned to work with pottery through slipcasting. It was my first real introduction to clay as an art medium and it is still my preference today as I love to bring new life to old plaster molds.  Slip is a liquid clay and you can buy it already in a liquid state, powdered, or as clay to make your own slip. For projects that will be decoration and not being used as a functional item, I prefer to use low fire slip  (cones 04-06) that comes ready to use. I really like the slip from New Mexico Clay as its easy to pour and I really like the finished color and texture. If I am making something to be used as a functional item like a mug or as bakeware I use high fire slip (cones 5-6) either from the ready-to-go Laguna B-Mix Slip or a slip I have made myself from high-fire clays.

For low-fire projects that I am hand building or making on the pottery wheel I like New Mexico Clay’s WLO, its smooth and without any grog or additional grit that makes a perfect surface for jewelry, decorative dishes, and anything I may be adding a monoprint or additional decal firing to. For higher fire clays I love the ones that are the deep browns or speckled clay bodies like the ChoCoLate and Especkled both made by New Mexico Clay. There are hundreds, if not thousands of clays on the market that I have not tried but these have been my favorites so far.

Mold found while hunting for slipcast molds from a Facebook Marketplace listing.

Slipcast Molds

For slipcasting, molds are an essential part of the process as they give form to the liquified clay that you will be pouring. One of the reason I love to slipcast so much is the use of vintage slipcast molds. While you can buy or make them new, I absolutely love finding vintage ones through yardsales and facebook marketplace. In a way hunting for the molds combines my love of thrifting with my new found love of clay. Some of my favorite molds that I’ve found have been when I have reached out to a listing on Facebook Marketplace and I get to dig through a whole selection of someone’s old garage or studio space. I have a collection of essential items and a few favourite decorative and functional molds that can be modified to make something new or poured as is.

Sometimes when I am thrifting I find a bowl or cup that I absolutely love the shape of. When this happens I think to myself, “but what if this was clay…. and I could decorate it however I want” and thats when I make new slipcast molds. Using an oil-based clay and a mold housing for silicone pouring I replicate the shape in Plaster of Paris. Plaster of Paris isn’t the ideal plaster for mold making as there is a pottery specific plaster with better absorption rates but I opt for Plaster of Paris because it is easier for me to source and costs less.

Molds will eventually begin to breakdown as they are used repeatedly. I have been able to duplicate them using silicone however it has been a messy process for me, often filled with mistakes. It is totally doable, just not quite in my skill set yet.

Pottery Wheel

Pottery wheel and my clay covered buddy.

When most people think of pottery they think of a pottery wheel. However, wheels are often expensive and rather messy to clean-up. I use a small electric pottery wheel that we got during an amazon prime day sale. It has worked well for the last six months with no issues. The only thing to be mindful of with the smaller wheels from amazon is that the space you can throw on is smaller and there is not a place to easily attach a bat system. To make things a bit easier for me I throw on top of round silicone cake pan mats. They make clean-up easier and I am able to lift whatever I have thrown off the wheel with ease.

Glazes

Depending on if whatever I have made is low or high fire different glazes are used. If I were to use a low-fire glaze in a higher firing the glaze could burn off, discolor, or melt all over the kiln. Because of this I like to keep my glazes separate on an over-the-door rack. Underglazes are essential for any of my designs on both types of pottery and I like the use the Mayco Fundamentals. To seal-in, make glossy, or make designs food safe I use a clear glaze on top of the underglaze.

Low fire glazes tend to not move as much during the kiln firing. Some glazes like the Mayco elements look to replicate the movement that is seen in glazes during higher temperature firings. One of my favorite glaze combinations at low fire is Mayco Elements Volcanic Glow under Sea Green. The results are a softer blue green with streaks of red dots across the surface. Because of the surface texture these glazes would not be recommended for dinnerware use but they are perfect as a decorative finish!

Forbidden peanut butter aka brown clay high fire slip stored in an old peanut butter jar.

I have only recently had a chance to start using high fire glazes and I love how they blend and interact under higher temperatures. Some of my favorite combinations have been Mayco’s Opal Luster under Tropical Teal with a band of Green Jasper. I have also really liked using Spectrum’s Kimchi, Cinnamon Ripple, and Nori glazes.

If I were going to start buying glazes for the first time the glazes mentioned above would be my top picks. I also love to get any glaze sample packs where you can try a small amount before buying the entire pint that most stoneware (higher fire) glazes come with.

Other Tools

Of course with any hobby there are a ton of tools you can use. If I were to restart my supplies my first ‘tool’ purchase would be a respirator. There are a lot of small particles that you do not want to breath with pottery and it is important to practice proper precautions when working with dry materials, including any clay dust. I have a respirator from amazon that is easy to replace the filter for and fits well on my face. For basic workspace materials plywood boards are essential. They are great for when you are wedging clay, rolling projects out, or moving and storing items. While nice tool sets are cool, a simple clay tools set can be round pretty cheap online. To this day, I still use the basic clay tool set I got for less than $10. Q-tips have also become a big part of my clay toolkit, they’re helpful for smoothing clay in small joints and cleaning small details. Rice paper is also another regularly used item in my clay home studio. I create transfers with my artist’s mark on rice paper in bulk and transfer them to the bottom of a piece before firing. I also save A LOT of my different plastic containers from food and other home items to resuse with my clay. Some examples of the uses of these containers include as pottery forms, as discard organizers, and as containers for new slip and studio water.

Olympic Doll E Test Kiln set-up in my garage.

With pottery I have found that just about anything can become a tool for clay.

The Kiln

Firing is arguably the most important part of the pottery process, without it you would be left with breakable clay in its greenware state or with an unsealed piece after bisque firing. If you do not have your own kiln community studio spaces are a way to have your work fired. Every community studio is different and may have different rules or clay firing. The community studio I like to use only fires low-fire cones 04 and 06. This means that if I want to make functional pottery with high fire clay I have to fire it myself. Most kilns require 240v and special outlets for firing. While kilns can be found on marketplace for a few hundred dollars, for my personal situation I needed a small, easy to transport kiln that could be run on a standard outlet. That is why I chose the Olympic Doll-E Test Kiln, a small oval shaped kiln that I can plug into any outlet in my home. For me the main limitation of this kiln is the shape and size. I can generally only fit about 3 mugs and a small bowl or dish for a glaze firing. I also am unable to fit any round dinnerware sized plates in the kiln due to the shape. However for size and easy of use I am still able to make and fire a lot of things with my home kiln.

Final Thoughts

This was in no way an inclusive list of items for a home studio, but they are all things that make my ability to create with clay easier. The essentials above are my staples in creating but not the only thing I use. As I continue to experiment I’m sure I will find more things to regularly use and I may find new favorites along the way. When I first started pottery, looking at other’s lists of favorites was a major way that helped me decide what tools and other products I needed to make pottery at home.

Follow along with me as I continue to grow on this home pottery journey.

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