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The Clay Hole University · Other Ways to Find, Fire, and Form

Obvara, or Baltic RakuPrintable pottery guide

A fermented flour firing on paper: what the brew does to a hot pot, the nine steps of the firing, how to mix and keep the brew, a pot that survives the shock, the three dials, and a log for every pot you fire.

$12.505 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Advanced
  • 25 printable pages
  • 6 video picks
  • 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 Obvara, or Baltic Raku printable guide?

It is the free “Obvara, or Baltic Raku” lesson rebuilt for paper: what the brew does to a hot pot, the nine steps of the firing in order, how to mix and keep the brew, a pot that survives the shock, the three dials, a safety list, eight faults and what each one is telling you. Built to be printed, read days before the firing and written in. It is decorative work only, it needs a kiln that can be opened hot and people beside you, and it prepares you rather than replacing hands on teaching.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Obvara, or Baltic Raku” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 25printable pages, US Letter
  • 7quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 6hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 9glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
For anyone who has seen a pot with a surface nobody could draw

The pattern takes seconds. The brew takes three days.

A glowing pot goes into a bucket of fermented flour, and the brew cooks onto the clay in creams, browns and blacks that nobody chose. There is no brush and no glaze. What decides the result is the brew you mixed days earlier, how hot the pot was, and how many seconds it spent in the bucket and in the air.

The guide gives you that order: what the brew is doing, the nine steps of the firing, how to mix a brew and know it is alive, a pot that can take the shock, and the three dials you move one at a time.

It also gives you what a web page cannot: a log to write in. The surface, how old the brew was, the seconds in the brew and in the air, and how the pot came out. Six pots of notes show you what your own kiln and brew do.

Look inside

Real pages, for reading before the fire

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

  • Page 3 of the “Obvara, or Baltic Raku” printable guide: before you begin, shown with the sample watermark
    Before you beginOne page before anything gets near a kiln: what you will learn, what you would need, what is worth knowing, the common pitfalls and what a good result looks like.
  • Page 4 of the “Obvara, or Baltic Raku” printable guide: what the brew does, shown with the sample watermark
    What the brew doesThe brew is food and the pot is a griddle. A short page on why a bucket of flour and water makes a pattern, and why no two pots come out the same.
  • Page 13 of the “Obvara, or Baltic Raku” printable guide: when it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    When it goes wrongEight things you might be looking at when a pot comes out wrong, what caused each one and what to change.
  • Page 18 of the “Obvara, or Baltic Raku” printable guide: every pot i fired, and how it came out, shown with the sample watermark
    Every pot I fired, and how it came outA log to write in: the surface, how old the brew was, the seconds in the brew and in the air, and how the pot came out.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Why this one belongs on paper

Read it cold, days before the fire

The brew has to be mixed three days ahead, and the firing cannot be paused. Learning it from a page you have already read suits both.

  • The order, where you can find it

    Every step of the firing is on the page in order, with the reason for each. Nothing to scrub through with a glove on.

  • A reason for every dial

    Temperature, seconds in the brew and seconds in the air each move the pattern in a direction you can predict. The guide says which way, so you know what you are looking at when a pot comes out pale or dark.

  • A log for your own pots

    Columns for the surface, the brew age, the seconds and how it came out. A few lines of notes beat a memory of how long two seconds felt.

  • A page stays where you put it

    It does not lock its screen, and you can set it down and come back to it. Reading it on paper before the firing means the order is already in your head on the day.

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 rules and our other lessons. Where the lesson was out of step, the guide now says what those pages say.

  • Not a substitute for the team

    The guide teaches the order and the preparation. At The Clay Hole the instructor or a trained helper loads and opens the kiln, and the guide says so.

  • Decorative, and plainly so

    An obvara pot is bare, porous and carries carbon. The guide says it is not food safe and not watertight, and that sealing it does not change that.

  • Plainer promises about workshops

    Where the lesson pointed at our raku workshops, the guide says those are for glazed raku pieces, not obvara, and sends you to ask the team first.

  • Video notes that say what the videos say

    Every video is another potter’s work, printed with its own QR code. Each note was written from the video’s own description, so it claims no more than that.

  • 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 “Obvara, or Baltic Raku” lesson, and that lesson is not going anywhere.

Obvara is one of my favorite things to watch. A glowing pot goes into a bucket of fermented flour, and a few seconds later there is a surface no brush could have made.

If it sounds like your kind of thing, come and ask us. Somebody here will be glad to talk it through.

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

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Sits next to

Three lessons that sit beside this one

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.
Can I practice this at home?
Only if you have a kiln you can safely open while it is hot, open ground to work on, full protective gear and a second person. The guide is plain that it is not a kitchen or garage technique. At home the part you can do is prepare the pot and mix the brew.
Does the guide replace hands on teaching?
No. It teaches the order and the preparation. At The Clay Hole the instructor or a trained helper loads and opens the kiln, and the guide says to ask the team before you plan on trying obvara with us.
Are your raku workshops for obvara?
No. Our raku workshops are for glazed raku pieces, and the guide says so. If you want to try obvara, ask the team first.
Do I need the raku safety certification first?
The guide describes it as worth doing, and it is not required. It does not replace the safety meeting or the waiver.
Is an obvara pot food safe?
No. It is bare, porous bisque carrying carbon, so it is decorative only and not watertight. Sealing it with wax or a clear coat does not change that, and the guide says so.
Can I refire a pot that came out badly?
Sometimes. The guide says to wash it, dry it for a full day or more and tell the team before you plan on it. It is another round of thermal shock, so expect a higher loss rate.
Are the videos yours?
No. Each one is another potter’s work. The guide prints each with its own QR code and a short note taken from the video’s own description, and nothing in the guide depends on watching them.
Do I need to be a member of The Clay Hole to use it?
No. The guide teaches the preparation and the order of the steps for anyone. Where a line is only ours, such as how our workshops run, the guide says so.
Is this too early for me?
It is marked Advanced. It helps to have made and bisque fired a few pieces first, and the glossary fills in the words.
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 pot log are the two worth having with you. 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 read 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.

One bucket, a few seconds, and notes

Mix the brew, learn the dials, and keep the team beside you at the kiln. The guide keeps every step in front of you before the fire.

Get the guide · $12.50

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Licensing, safety, digital delivery, and refund terms

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Terms version 2026-09-19b