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 gap is weeks long
You glaze a pot on a Tuesday. It comes out of the kiln ten days 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. Nothing else in pottery has such a long delay between the decision and the result, which is exactly why memory fails here and not elsewhere.
A note written at the moment of glazing closes the gap. It does not need to be a system.
The habit
- Write the note while you glaze, not later. Later never happens.
- Four things. Clay body, glaze or glazes, number of coats, date.
- Put the note with the pot, on the ware board, not in a book on a shelf.
- Photograph it when it comes out, next to the note, in one frame.
- Add one line about the result. Too thin, ran on the left, better than last time.
- Keep the photos somewhere searchable. An album on your phone is a perfectly good system.
Fifteen seconds at the bench, and one photo at the kiln.
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 four things that matter
If you record nothing else, record these. They reproduce most results on their own.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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
A fingernail scratch and 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
Freshly mixed, settled and stirred, thin and watery. Glaze from a tired bucket does not behave like glaze from a fresh one, and this 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 at the kiln, while you are looking at the pot. This is the most valuable line in any pottery notebook and the one most often skipped.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Make them from the clay you use. A tile in white stoneware tells you nothing useful about the same glaze on a dark body.
- Vary the thickness on purpose. One dip, two dips, three across the same tile. That single tile then answers the thickness question for good.
- Mark them before they are fired, stamped or carved into the clay. A tile labeled in marker loses its label the first time somebody wipes it.
- Put a hole in them and hang them together. Tiles in a drawer are tiles nobody looks at.
The one tile that changes how people glaze
A single tile with the same glaze at three thicknesses, on your clay, with a vertical face. Most people who make one stop guessing about coats immediately, because the difference between two dips and three turns out to be enormous.
Where to keep it
There is no correct system. There are systems people keep using and systems people abandon.
- 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 at the kiln.
- A paper notebook survives the studio. Clay hands, water, dust. Paper does not mind any of it and does not need charging.
- Index cards travel with the work. One card per pot, on the ware board, so the record is physically attached to the thing it describes until the pot is finished.
- A spreadsheet is good for people who like spreadsheets and abandoned by everybody else within a month. Be honest about which you are.
- 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.
- 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 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Take the photo at the kiln, the moment you unpack. Not at home, not later, because by then the note and the pot have separated.
- Do not backfill. A gap in the record is fine. Trying to reconstruct three months is how people quit.
- 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.
- 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.
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 travels with the pot, 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.
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 at the kiln, 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 travels with the pot on the ware board, 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.
Where to go next
What pottery glaze actually is
Why thickness changes the color so much, which is the variable your notes exist to capture.
Read it →Oxides, carbonates and ceramic stains
Where the line test comes from, and why one tile beats a year of reading.
Read it →Spraying glaze
The method where counting coats is not optional, and the notes matter most.
Read it →Makers marks
Scratching the year beside your mark, which is the smallest useful record there is.
Read it →Clay Hole University
Every lesson and guide in one place, from first day at the wheel through firing and glaze chemistry.
Start there →Fifteen seconds against ten days
The reason this feels like admin and turns out not to be is the delay. Ten days 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 open a kiln to something good 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 at the kiln. 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.
Which version would you like to print?
Videos come out as a labeled box with the title and channel to search for, since paper does not play them.