Owner's Favorites

The glazes I keep reaching for, the underdogs almost nobody picks up, and what I do with them once they are on a pot.

My picks
16
Underdogs
26
Ones we mix here
4
Owner's Favorites at The Clay Hole

I have made a lot of pots. I have also ruined a lot of pots, and the ruined ones are where this list came from.

There is a story potters tell each other. If you are serious about glaze, you mix your own from raw materials. I understand the appeal. I went the other way. I wanted to know how far I could push the jars and buckets that any member here can reach on the shelf, and I have spent years finding out.

The answer is a very long way. My own work is finished almost entirely with glazes off that wall, and it sells out about as fast as I can put it up. I am not telling you that to brag. I am telling you because it is the whole argument for taking a commercial glaze seriously.

So here is my list. Not the best sellers. Not the safe picks. These are the ones I keep coming back to, and then a long tail of beautiful glazes almost nobody in this studio touches.

What a commercial glaze can actually do

What a commercial glaze can actually do

Every piece here came off our own shelf. No mixing room, no raw materials in sacks, no secret recipe. Test tiles and patience, mostly.

My finished work does not sit around for long. Have a look: danpearceceramics.com

I own and founded this place, which is still a strange sentence to type. More about that here: who I am

The ones I keep coming back to

In no particular order, because ranking them would be a lie.

Some are here for what they do on their own. Most are here for what they do next to something else.

Orion

Coyote ConstellationBlack Level

Deep and strange, and it goes somewhere else entirely on Berlin Gray. Worth a test tile before you commit a big pot to it.

Dragon Stone

Speedball Mid-FireBlack Level

One of the few glazes that earns its name. Broken, mottled, reptilian in the best way.

Charcoal Satin

Coyote SatinYellow Level

A workhorse. Soft and dark, and it makes almost anything I put beside it look better.

June Bug

Amaco Potter's ChoiceOwner Only

Iridescent green black that shifts as you walk past it. We keep it for owner use, so if you fall for it you will be ordering your own jar.

Mayco Light Flux

Mayco FluxBuy your own

Put it over a Stroke & Coat and watch the whole thing move. The running is the point, so leave real room at the foot.

Steel Gray Shino

Coyote ShinosBlack Level

Quiet until it breaks over an edge. Then it is not quiet at all.

Mocha Shino

Coyote ShinosBlack Level

Warm, soft and endlessly forgiving. A good one to learn shinos on.

Storied Sage

Speedball Mid-FireBlack Level

A muted green with real depth to it. Reads expensive, which is a strange thing to say about a jar of glaze.

Teal Agate

Speedball Mid-FireBlack Level

Banded and layered straight out of the jar. It does the work for you.

Tidal Pool

The Ceramic Shop Pro SeriesPurple Level

Pools and pulls in a way I have not managed to get out of anything else.

Texture Burgundy

Spectrum TextureYellow Level

Paired beside Texture Honey, not layered over it. Two fields of color meeting on the same pot.

Celadon Bloom

Mayco Various FamiliesPurple Level

I use this one alone. Every time I have tried to be clever with it I have made it worse.

Creamed Ice

The Clay Hole Dipping GlazesPurple Level

Ours. Soft, pale, and it behaves itself.

Dan's Secret Sauce

The Clay Hole Dipping GlazesBlack Level

Also ours, and yes, I named it. It does exactly what I want it to do.

Shipwreck

Mayco Various FamiliesPurple Level

Rough and oxidized. Wonderful over texture.

Pewter

Spectrum Various FamiliesPurple Level

A grey with metal in it. Beautiful on a plain form where nothing else is competing.

The spectacular underdogs

Some of the most beautiful glazes we carry get walked past every single day, and I have never worked out why.

I have always been a sucker for an underdog. This shelf is full of them.

Frosted Turquoise

Amaco Potter's ChoicePurple Level

Pale and crystalline where it runs thin. People walk past it because the jar looks boring.

Satin Oribe

Amaco Potter's ChoicePurple Level

A green that breaks copper over every edge. Criminally overlooked.

Tourmaline

Amaco Potter's ChoicePurple Level

Dark and glassy, and it pools purple where it gathers.

Temmoku

Amaco Potter's ChoicePurple Level

The better behaved cousin of every dramatic brown. Reliable and lovely.

Vert Lustre

Amaco Potter's ChoicePurple Level

Wet looking green. It reads like something pulled out of a river.

Copper Red

Amaco Potter's ChoicePurple Level

Hard to get right. Worth it when you do.

Blue Stone

Amaco Potter's ChoicePurple Level

Speckled and soft. It flatters a simple form.

Blue Shino

Coyote ShinosBlack Level

Shinos are already underrated. This is the underrated one among them.

Desert Sage Shino

Coyote ShinosBlack Level

Dusty and muted, and completely unlike anything else on the wall.

Pam's Blue

Coyote MottledGreen Level

Mottled and moody, and it is Green Level, so everybody can use it.

Archie’s Base

Coyote Archie'sBlack Level

Not a color, a flux. Put it where you want movement and let it pull the glaze underneath.

Gun Metal Green

Coyote Archie'sPurple Level

June Bug's wild cousin. It runs hard, so leave serious room at the foot.

Snowy Plum

Coyote Copper & IronBlack Level

Soft purple with white breaking through it. Nobody touches this one.

Fairy Rose

Coyote FantasyPurple Level

Pink is unfashionable and this one is gorgeous.

Ancient Iron

Coyote FantasyYellow Level

Rust and iron. It looks excavated rather than glazed.

Wrought Iron

Mayco MattePurple Level

Matte black with iron coming up through the surface.

Storm Gray

Mayco MattePurple Level

A grey that does not read as flat. Try it over texture.

Azurite

Mayco MattePurple Level

Deep blue with real movement in it.

Antique Brass

Mayco Various FamiliesPurple Level

Metallic without being a novelty.

Desert Dusk

Mayco Various FamiliesPurple Level

Warm and dusky. It suits a wide open form.

Gray Opal

Mayco Various FamiliesPurple Level

Pale and shifting, and much better in person than on a tile.

Nimbus

Mayco Various FamiliesPurple Level

Cloudy and soft edged. Good over a carved surface.

Oxblood

Mayco Various FamiliesPurple Level

Deep red brown. Old, serious, beautiful.

Robin’s Egg

Mayco Various FamiliesPurple Level

The color everybody says they want and nobody picks up.

Tamjoda

The Clay Hole Dipping GlazesPurple Level

Ours. Odd name, lovely result.

Blue Hole

The Clay Hole Dipping GlazesPurple Level

Also ours. Deep blue that gathers in the low spots.

Swipe or use the arrows, 26 in this row
Owner's Favorites at The Clay Hole: I almost never use one glaze

I almost never use one glaze

Layering, combining, fluxes, washes, overglazes, abstract application. I treat that wall like a box of oil paints rather than a menu.

Anyone can make a pretty pot with one glaze. Pick the things that work together and build the piece instead.

Owner's Favorites at The Clay Hole: Go and look at the real thing

Go and look at the real thing

A test tile tells you the color. It does not tell you what a glaze does over a carved edge, or a thrown ridge, or across a pot two feet tall.

There are hundreds of my finished pieces out on display through the studio. Next time you are in, walk the whole place slowly and look at what the glaze is doing rather than what color it is.

Owner's Favorites at The Clay Hole: Any of our celadons, honestly

Any of our celadons, honestly

I could not pick one, so I am picking all of them. They break beautifully over texture, and they blend and mix like a watercolor palette, which almost nothing else on that wall will do.

Every one we carry sits on one page: the whole celadon shelf

Common questions

Do I have to use these the way you do?

No. Half of them are lovely straight out of the jar on a plain pot. The layering is what I enjoy, it is not a rule.

Can I use all of them?

That depends on your level, and every card says which level includes it. June Bug is Owner Only, so if you want that one you will be ordering your own jar.

Why are the underdogs underdogs?

Mostly because the jar looks dull or the tile is small. A glaze that photographs badly and fires beautifully is my favorite kind of problem.

Where can I see these on real pots?

Walk the studio. There are hundreds of finished pieces on display and most of them are mine.

Start with one you have walked past a hundred times. That is usually where the good stuff is hiding.

Also worth a look

Studio FavoritesThe glazes we keep coming back to, chosen on behavior rather than looks. All the CeladonsEvery celadon we stock. The shelf to reach for when the carving is the point. Food Safe GlazesSearch any glaze we carry to see whether it is food safe, and the maker source behind it.
Back to the Glaze Bible
About these images and what your pot will actually look like

We have done our best to represent every glaze here accurately, and you should still expect your pot to look different from what is on this screen.

Our glaze tile images are digitally created. They are built to show the character of a glaze, not to be a color match.

A screen is not a printout, a printout is not a test tile, and a test tile is not a finished pot. Each step in that chain shifts what a glaze looks like, sometimes a lot.

On top of that, the pottery itself changes the result: the clay body, how thick the glaze went on, whether it was brushed, dipped or sprayed, what was layered under or over it, where the piece sat in the kiln, how hot that spot ran, how fast it cooled, what was fired next to it, and how much texture the surface had. Two pots glazed from the same jar on the same day can come out different.

Treat every image here as a starting point, and treat a test tile fired on your own clay as the real answer.

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