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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Gray Opal
Mayco Various FamiliesPurple Level
Pale and shifting, and much better in person than on a tile.
Robin’s Egg
Mayco Various FamiliesPurple Level
The color everybody says they want and nobody picks up.
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
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.
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.
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
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.