You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 11.04

The Clay Hole University · Glazing

When to Use Celadon GlazesPrintable pottery guide

Choosing celadon, on paper: why it is glass and not paint, which pieces it flatters, which ones to leave it off, what thickness and clay do to the color, and a log for what your own pieces do.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Intermediate
  • 18 printable pages
  • 12-term glossary
  • 7-question quiz + answer key

Flip through the free sample
  • Instant download
  • Prints on any printer
  • The lesson stays free
The printable, at a glance

What is the When to Use Celadon Glazes printable guide?

It is the free “When to Use Celadon Glazes” lesson rebuilt for paper: celadon as colored glass melted thin, the four kinds of piece it flatters, the three it does not, four things it will never apologize for, a gut check for six kinds of piece, and the glazes to reach for on smooth work. Built to be printed, kept beside the glaze wall and written in.

Prefer to read it online first? The “When to Use Celadon Glazes” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 18printable pages, US Letter
  • 7quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 7QR codes, each on a short Clay Hole address
  • 12glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
For anyone holding a celadon jar and a piece they love

Right glaze, right piece.

Celadon is the most honest glaze on the shelf. Give it a carved or textured piece and it makes you look like you have been at this for years. Give it a smooth mug and it tells everybody exactly what happened.

The guide puts the choice in one place: what celadon does, the pieces it was made for, the pieces that should wait for a different glaze, and the four things it will never apologize for, from thickness to brush marks to the clay underneath.

It also gives you something a jar cannot: a page to write on. The texture on the piece, the celadon and clay you chose, the coats and how it fired. After a few pieces you will know which of yours were right for it.

Look inside

Real pages, for a glaze wall

These are actual pages from the guide, shown here with the sample watermark.

  • Page 3 of the “When to Use Celadon Glazes” printable guide: before you begin, shown with the sample watermark
    Before you beginOne page before you choose a color: what you will learn, what to have with you, what is worth knowing, the common pitfalls, and what a good result looks like.
  • Page 5 of the “When to Use Celadon Glazes” printable guide: glass, not paint, shown with the sample watermark
    Glass, not paintThe cross section of a ridge and a carved groove, and the four kinds of surface where celadon earns its keep.
  • Page 6 of the “When to Use Celadon Glazes” printable guide: when to leave it on the shelf, shown with the sample watermark
    When to leave it on the shelfSmooth surfaces, one even solid color, and anywhere brush marks would hurt, with the honest reason for each.
  • Page 11 of the “When to Use Celadon Glazes” printable guide: every celadon piece, and how it came out, shown with the sample watermark
    Every celadon piece, and how it came outA log to write in: the texture, the celadon and clay, the coats and how it fired.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Why this one belongs on paper

A choice and a log are things you keep beside you

Picking a glaze happens at a shelf with a jar in your hand. Paper suits that.

  • The choice where you can see it

    What to reach for, what to leave on the shelf and what to grab for smooth work sit on one page you can pin up beside the wall.

  • A reason for every rule

    Each warning comes with the reason behind it: celadon pools in low spots, thins over high ones and lets the clay speak through it.

  • A log for your own pieces

    Columns for the texture, the celadon and clay, the coats and how it fired. A few pieces of notes beat a memory of what you did.

  • It does not mind a wet hand

    A page stays where you put it. It does not lock its screen while you are holding a jar.

How this one is built

Rebuilt for paper, not printed from a web page

Every guide in the series is set from scratch for print. Here is what that meant for this one.

  • Read against the studio’s own rules

    We checked the lesson against The Clay Hole’s glaze rules and our other lessons. Where the lesson was out of step, the guide now says what those pages say.

  • A shelf rule where it was missing

    The lesson said heavy coats slide toward the foot and never said what protects the shelf. It now says the bottom stays bare and every piece goes in the kiln on a kiln cookie.

  • Plainer promises about smooth work

    No glaze is guaranteed streak free. The guide says the alternatives flow far more evenly, and that even coats still matter.

  • Web buttons turned into plain words

    The six piece picker becomes six named verdicts you can read straight through, and the buttons become sentences.

  • A quiz that explains itself

    A short quiz, and an answer key that gives the reason behind every answer rather than only the letter.

  • Codes that keep working

    Every link is a short Clay Hole address. If a page moves, we repoint the address and your printed copy still goes to the right place.

Why the University is free

The lesson is free. It always will be.

All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free “When to Use Celadon Glazes” lesson, and that lesson is not going anywhere.

Celadon is the most honest glaze on the shelf. Give it a pot with something to say and it will make you look like you have been doing this for years.

That is not the glaze failing. It is the glaze working on the wrong piece.

Dan Pearce, founder of The Clay Hole
The series

Build a little pottery library

Every printable guide in The Clay Hole University series takes one free lesson and rebuilds it for paper, with workbook pages, a glossary and a quiz with a worked answer key. Each one keeps its number for good, so a guide you buy today is the same guide in the same place next year.

Put any five printable guides in your cart and the cheapest one is on us. Put in nine and the two cheapest are on us. It happens automatically at checkout, no code to remember.

See every printable guide

  • 5guides in your cart1 on us
  • 9guides in your cart2 on us
Sits next to

Three lessons that pick up where this one leaves off

Each one is free to read online, and the codes in the guide take you straight there.

Questions

Good to know

How is this different from the free lesson?
The teaching is the same, and the free lesson is not going anywhere. The guide is that teaching rebuilt for paper: a learning dashboard at the front, a log to write in, a one page summary, a glossary and a quiz with an answer key that explains every answer.
Is this only for people who work at The Clay Hole?
No. Celadon behaves the same way in any studio. Where a rule is only ours, such as which glazes open at which Level, the guide says so, so you can tell a Clay Hole rule from a fact of the craft.
Does it tell me which celadon to buy?
No. It teaches you how to choose the piece and what to expect from the glaze. For colors and swatches it points you to the glaze index on our website.
Will it fix my streaky smooth mug?
It explains why it streaked and which kinds of glaze suit smooth work, so the next one goes better. It cannot change a piece that has already been fired.
Do I have to be a member to use it?
You do not need to be a member to read it. If you use The Clay Hole’s glaze wall, the glaze certification and agreement come first.
Is this too early for me?
It is marked Intermediate. You need a bisque fired piece with real texture on it, and a willingness to keep your coats even. The glossary fills in the rest.
Do I need a fancy printer?
No. It is set for an ordinary home or office printer on regular US Letter paper, with nothing important near the edges, so normal printer margins cut nothing off.
Does it print in black and white?
Yes. The text, the tick boxes and the tables are black on white, and color is used for headings and small labels.
Can I print just part of it?
Yes, and most people do. The one page summary and the log are the two worth having beside the wall. They are numbered pages like any other, so you can print those and leave the rest on a screen.
How does delivery work?
It is a digital download. The link arrives by email and on the order confirmation page right after checkout, so you can have it printed and beside the wall the same evening.
What happens if the guide is updated?
Every edition carries its version number on the last page. When we correct or improve one, the new edition replaces the old one in the shop, and we can send the updated link to anybody who already bought it.
Can I share it?
It is licensed for your own use. Print as many copies for yourself as you like, on as many of your own devices as you like. Please do not pass the file on, upload it or use it with a class or a group without asking us first.

Carve it, stamp it, then let the glaze do the telling

Check the piece, choose the color and keep your coats even. The guide keeps the whole choice in front of you at the wall.

Get the guide · $5.00

The Clay Hole University Printable Guide Terms

Licensing, safety, digital delivery, and refund terms

Your copy is yours. The guide is not.

Your purchase gives one individual purchaser a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license for personal use only. You may download the guide to your own devices, print copies for your own use, write all over them, spill clay water on them, replace a coffee-damaged copy, and generally use the heck out of what you bought.

What you may not do is distribute the guide to anyone else, whether you charge for it or not.

That means you may not share, forward, email, upload, post, publish, copy, reproduce, resell, sublicense, redistribute, or otherwise provide the guide, or any substantial portion of it, to another person. You may not place it in a shared drive, group chat, membership library, online community, file-sharing service, studio resource folder, classroom packet, employee handbook, course, workshop, or other shared collection. You may not make copies for students, members, employees, friends, classes, studios, schools, groups, or organizations.

You may not remove or obscure copyright notices, watermarks, attribution, or other ownership information, or sell, republish, or commercially exploit modified or derivative versions of the guide.

Purchasing the guide does not transfer ownership of its copyrighted text, photographs, illustrations, graphics, layouts, worksheets, or other original content. Those rights remain with The Clay Hole and their respective rights holders. Copyright law protects the expression contained in these guides, while ideas, methods, techniques, and processes may have different legal treatment.

If you would like to use one of our guides with a class, studio, school, team, or other group, contact The Clay Hole about permission or group licensing. Please do not make twenty copies and call it manifesting.

Pottery is wonderfully unpredictable. It also carries real risk.

We work hard to make The Clay Hole University accurate, useful, practical, and ridiculously thorough. But pottery is a hands-on craft involving countless variables that no written guide can completely control or anticipate.

Depending on what you are doing, ceramics may involve extreme heat, kilns, electricity, gas, flame, sharp tools, spinning machinery, heavy equipment, pressurized equipment, silica-containing dust, fumes, chemicals, raw materials, stains, oxides, glazes, combustible materials, hot surfaces, breakable objects, and other hazards capable of causing serious injury, illness, property damage, fire, or worse.

These guides are provided for general educational and informational purposes. They are not a substitute for hands-on training, competent supervision, your studio’s safety procedures, applicable laws or codes, Safety Data Sheets, or the instructions and warnings supplied by the manufacturers of your clay, glaze, chemicals, tools, kilns, equipment, protective gear, or other materials.

Studios, kilns, clay bodies, glazes, firing schedules, electrical systems, ventilation systems, equipment, environmental conditions, application thicknesses, material formulations, and individual techniques vary enormously. Something that works beautifully in one situation may fail spectacularly in another. That is part of pottery. Occasionally, it is a very expensive part of pottery.

You are responsible for determining whether any technique, material, combination, firing schedule, tool, or process described in a guide is appropriate and safe for your specific circumstances before using it.

Use appropriate protective equipment. Use adequate ventilation and dust control. Read manufacturer instructions and Safety Data Sheets. Follow your studio’s rules. Obtain qualified instruction when a process or piece of equipment requires it. Test materials and techniques before committing important work to them. If you do not understand how to perform something safely, do not proceed until you do.

Never assume that a ceramic surface, glaze, clay body, firing method, finished vessel, repair, decoration, or other result is food-safe, microwave-safe, dishwasher-safe, oven-safe, structurally sound, chemically stable, or suitable for any particular purpose solely because it appears in or is discussed in one of our guides. Verify suitability independently when it matters.

Ceramics also refuses to sign contracts promising beautiful results. Colors change. Glazes move. Kilns have opinions. Pots crack. Materials interact unexpectedly. Manufacturers reformulate products. Equipment behaves differently. The Clay Hole does not guarantee any particular aesthetic, functional, firing, glazing, structural, or other result.

By choosing to use the information in a guide, you accept responsibility for your own materials, equipment, workspace, safety decisions, testing, methods, and results. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, The Clay Hole and its owners, employees, contributors, and affiliates are not responsible for injury, illness, property damage, lost work, failed projects, kiln or equipment damage, financial loss, or other loss arising from or related to your use of, or reliance upon, the guide.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits any right or liability that applicable law does not allow us to exclude or limit.

Digital guides, immediate delivery, and refunds

These are digital products delivered electronically and made available for use immediately after purchase. Unlike a physical book, a downloaded digital file cannot meaningfully be returned to us once it has been delivered.

By completing your purchase and requesting immediate access to the guide, you consent to digital delivery beginning immediately. Where applicable law provides a cancellation or withdrawal period for digital content, you acknowledge that beginning the download, access, or delivery of the digital content may cause that cancellation or withdrawal right to end.

Once access to or delivery of the purchased digital guide has begun, the purchase is final and non-refundable except where a refund, replacement, cancellation, or other remedy is required by applicable law.

If the file you receive is corrupted, inaccessible, materially different from what was described, or there is a genuine technical problem with delivery, please contact us. We would much rather fix the problem than leave you staring angrily at a PDF that refuses to PDF.

Terms version 2026-09-19b