Glazing

Logging Your Pottery and Glazes

Every potter has opened a kiln, found something they loved, and then been unable to make it again. The information that would have saved it took about fifteen seconds to write down and nobody wrote it down. Here is the short list of what actually matters, and how to record it without turning pottery into paperwork.

Write down the clay, the glaze, how many coats, and the date. Four things, on a card next to the pot. That is enough to reproduce almost anything, and almost nobody does it.

The four things that actually matter Test tiles that tell you something Two videos, none of them ours
The four things Where to write them Three things people get wrong
A glazed vase on an open sketchbook, beside a phone showing its photo and a scatter of small glaze test tiles
Jump to a section
The four things that matter What else is worth recording Test tiles that tell you something Where to keep it Making it a habit you keep What people get wrong The whole idea, quickly The habit Three things people get wrong Questions we get asked Keep going

What to record, where to keep it, and how to make it a habit that survives.

The whole idea

The gap is long

You glaze a pot on a Tuesday. It comes out of the kiln a week or more later, and by then you have made six other things and cannot remember which blue you used or how many coats went on.

That gap is the entire problem. That long a delay between the decision and the result is exactly why memory fails here.

A note written at the moment of glazing closes the gap. It does not need to be a system.

Start to finish

The habit

What to Keep Track of in Your Glaze Journal Sue McLeod Ceramics
  1. Write the note while you glaze, not later. Later never happens.
  2. Four things. Clay body, glaze or glazes, number of coats, date.
  3. Put the note with the pot, where you will see it, not in a book on a shelf.
  4. Photograph it when it comes out, next to the note, in one frame.
  5. Add one line about the result. Too thin, ran on the left, better than last time.
  6. Keep the photos somewhere searchable. An album on your phone is a perfectly good system.

Fifteen seconds at the bench, and one photo when you collect it.

Worth knowing

Three things people get wrong

Building a system instead of a habit

An elaborate spreadsheet with twenty columns gets used twice. A scrap of paper with four things on it gets used for years. Start smaller than feels serious.

Recording the glaze and nothing else

The glaze name alone does not reproduce a result. Thickness and the clay underneath change it more than most people expect, and those are the two facts everybody omits.

Only writing down the successes

The failures are the more useful half. Knowing that a combination ran badly saves the pot you were about to make with it, and nobody remembers a bad result accurately six months later.

The minimum that works

The four things that matter

If you record nothing else, record these. They reproduce most results on their own.

  1. The clay body. The single most overlooked one. The same glaze on a dark stoneware and on a white body can look like two unrelated glazes, because iron in the clay migrates up into the melt.
  2. The glaze, and the order if there is more than one. Which went on first matters as much as which glazes they were. A over B is not the same result as B over A.
  3. How many coats, and how applied. Dipped once, brushed three times, sprayed. Thickness changes color more than almost anything, so a glaze name without a thickness is half a record.
  4. The date. Cheap to write and it connects the pot to everything else: which glaze bucket, which clay delivery, which firing.

Why these four and not more

Because they cover the variables you control. Everything else, the kiln schedule, the shelf position, the weather, is either constant here or out of your hands. Four fields fit on a scrap of paper, and a record that fits on a scrap of paper is one you will actually write.

If you want more

What else is worth recording

Add these once the basic habit is sticking, not before.

Where on the pot

Inside, outside, rim only, poured and swirled. Two glazes on one pot with no note about which went where is a record you cannot use.

How thick it looked wet

Look, do not touch, because wet glaze smears. A rough sense of the layer, written as thin, normal or heavy, which is precise enough to act on.

Anything unusual you did

Wax resist, a wipe back, sanding the bisque, a second firing. These are the details that turn out to matter and are never remembered.

The bucket's condition

Whether it was freshly stirred, settled, or thin and watery. A bucket or jar that looks off goes to an instructor; nobody adds water. A tired bucket does not behave like a fresh one, which explains a lot of inconsistent results.

What you were trying to achieve

One line of intent. In six months it tells you whether the result was a failure or just a different success.

What you would change

Written when you collect it, while you are looking at the pot. This is the most valuable line in any pottery notebook and the one most often skipped.

The other half of the record

Test tiles that tell you something

A notebook records what you did. A tile records what happened. You need both, and a bad tile is worse than none because it misleads you.

How to Make Glaze Test Tiles - A Beginner's Guide Florian Gadsby Eighteen minutes, in chapters: throwing the test tiles, separating them from the bat, a light trim, cutting them apart and fettling them clean.
  1. A flat tile lies to you. Glaze behaves differently on a vertical surface than on a flat one, because gravity is involved. A tile with a vertical face and a curve tells you whether a glaze runs; a flat chip does not.
  2. Include an edge. Many glazes break over a rim or an angle, showing a second color. That effect is often the reason to use the glaze at all, and a flat tile hides it.
  3. Make them from the clay you use. A tile in white stoneware tells you nothing useful about the same glaze on a dark body.
  4. Vary the thickness on purpose. One coat, two coats, three, in bands across the same tile or on tiles side by side, changing nothing else. That answers the thickness question for good.
  5. Mark them before they are fired, stamped or carved into the clay. A tile labeled in marker loses its label in the kiln.
  6. Put a hole in them and hang them together. Tiles in a drawer are tiles nobody looks at. At The Clay Hole every tile goes into the glaze firing like any piece, on a kiln cookie or glaze catcher, and staff load the kiln.

The one tile that changes how people glaze

A single tile with the same glaze at one, two and three coats, on your clay, with a vertical face. Most people who make one stop guessing about coats immediately, because the difference between two coats and three turns out to be enormous.

The format

Where to keep it

There is no correct system. There are systems people keep using and systems people abandon.

Making Pottery Glaze Test Tiles - Wheel Thrown and Handbuilt Pottery Crafters Fourteen minutes in five chapters: an introduction, hand building tiles, wheel throwing tiles, glazing and analysis, then display and conclusions.
  1. Your phone camera is the best tool available. A photo of the pot beside its note captures both at once, it is dated automatically, and it is already in your pocket when you collect the pot.
  2. A paper notebook survives the studio. Clay hands, water, dust. Paper does not mind any of it and does not need charging.
  3. Index cards stay with the work. One card per pot, kept beside it while it waits, so the record stays attached to the thing it describes.
  4. A spreadsheet is good for people who like spreadsheets and abandoned by everybody else within a month. Be honest about which you are.
  5. Notes on your phone work if that is where you already write things down. The best system is the one you are already in the habit of opening.
  6. Whatever you choose, one place only. Half in a notebook and half in photos is how records get lost, because neither half is complete.
Making it stick

Making it a habit you keep

Almost everybody starts a pottery journal. Almost nobody is still keeping one a year later. The difference is not discipline, it is how much the system asks for.

  1. Attach it to something you already do. The note gets written while the glaze is drying, in the gap you are already standing there for.
  2. Make it smaller than feels adequate. Four fields. If four feels too easy, good, that is why you will still be doing it in March.
  3. Take the photo the moment you collect it. Not at home, not later, because by then the note and the pot have separated.
  4. Do not backfill. A gap in the record is fine. Trying to reconstruct three months is how people quit.
  5. Reread it occasionally. A record nobody reads feels pointless, and it is. Ten minutes every couple of months is what turns it from a chore into something useful.
  6. Let it grow on its own. If you find yourself wishing you had recorded something, add that field from then on. The system should follow the questions you actually have.
Common mistakes

What people get wrong

Starting with a template from the internet

Twenty columns designed by somebody who mixes their own glazes. Most of it does not apply, and filling in fields that do not matter is what kills the habit.

Writing it up afterward

The note has to be made at the bench. Anything written from memory a day later is already guesswork, and it feels like a record while not being one.

No photo

Words cannot hold a color. Half of what you want back later is visual, and a photo takes two seconds where a description takes a paragraph and still fails.

Losing which pot it refers to

Numbered notes and unnumbered pots. Either the note stays beside the pot while it waits, or the pot carries a mark that matches the note.

Recording the glaze but not the clay

The most common single omission. The clay body underneath changes the fired color substantially, and without it a glaze record is not reproducible.

Never looking at it again

A journal that is only ever written to is a diary, not a tool. The value appears the first time you look something up and it is there.

Questions we get asked

The ones that come up at the tables

What is the minimum worth recording?

Clay body, glaze or glazes with the order they went on, number of coats, and the date. Those four reproduce most results, and they fit on a scrap of paper, which is why people actually write them.

Why does the clay body matter so much?

Because iron and other materials in the clay migrate into the glaze during firing. The same glaze on a dark stoneware and on a white body can read as two completely different glazes, and this is the detail people leave out most often.

Is a photo enough on its own?

Nearly, if the note is in the frame. A photo of the finished pot beside its written note captures both the result and the method in one dated image, which is about as efficient as this gets.

What makes a good test tile?

A vertical face so you can see whether the glaze runs, an edge so you can see whether it breaks, your actual clay body, and more than one thickness on the same tile. A flat chip in the wrong clay tells you very little.

Should I write down failures?

Especially failures. Knowing that a particular pairing ran badly saves the next pot, and nobody remembers a bad result accurately months later. The successes tend to get repeated anyway.

Notebook, phone or spreadsheet?

Whichever you already use for other things. Paper survives clay hands and needs no charging, phones are already in your pocket when you collect a pot, spreadsheets suit people who like spreadsheets. The only real rule is one place rather than two.

How do I keep the note matched to the pot?

Either the note stays beside the pot while it waits, or the pot carries a number that matches the note. Notes filed separately from unmarked pots is how records become useless.

I stopped keeping one. How do I restart?

Start from today and do not backfill. Trying to reconstruct the last three months from memory is both inaccurate and the most common reason people give up a second time.

One last thing

Fifteen seconds against the wait

The reason this feels like admin and turns out not to be is the delay. A week or more between glazing a pot and seeing it is long enough that memory simply does not hold, no matter how sure you are at the time that you will remember.

Four things on a card, and a photo when it comes out. That is the whole of it. The first time you collect a pot you love and know exactly how you made it, the habit stops being a chore and starts being the reason your work gets better instead of just different.

Clay, glaze, coats, date. Written at the bench, kept with the pot, photographed when you collect it. Record the failures too, and do not build a spreadsheet you will abandon.

If you want the test tile detail and how to make the habit stick, switch to the Comprehensive Version at the top of the page.