All About Pottery
Here you’ll find a handy ‘How it Works’ guide for pottery painting beginners, as well as the cool things we’re doing to make our studio as good as it can possibly be!
The pottery painting process is like magic. Why do we say that, you ask? Because your pottery transforms!
When you leave it with us, it’s all powdery and pastel-coloured. When you pick it up, it’s bright and shiny!
But how? Stick with us, and we’ll tell you.
1) Pick it
Mosy definately the hardest part! We have nine shelves with over 110 different shapes to choose from, so we guarentee you’ll find something to your liking!
2) Paint it
This is the fun bit! Use our coloured paints, brushes, sponges, writer pens and speckled glazes to decorate your pottery however you like. You’ll find lots of inspiration in the studio and on our social media if you’re stuck for ideas.
That’s your job done! But your pottery needs a bit of finishing off before you can take it home. That’s where we come in…
3) Glaze it
Once you’ve left and your pottery is dry, we dip it into a blue liquid called glaze. It’s the glaze that makes it shiny, and safe to use. We leave the glazed pottery to dry for another 24 hours before it’s safe to go in the kiln. But it can’t go into the kiln until…
4) Check it
After your pottery has well and truly dried, we check it for any lumps and bumps which need to be smoothed out. We also dry-foot anything that has a rim. That means that we rub the glaze off the pottery’s bottom edge, so that it doesn’t get stuck to the kiln. (That would be a bit awkward to explain…)
5) Cook it
This is where the magic happens! We load the pottery into our kiln (which is effectively a giant oven) and fire it up! The kiln has space for around 50 pieces of pottery, and it heats to over 1000°C. 24 hours later and it’s cool enough to unload. Unloading the kiln is always exciting - we can’t wait to see how everything has turned out!
6) Collect it
After we’ve unloaded the pottery, every piece has to have its photo taken for the album. Then we file down any sharp edges, so that they don’t scratch your surfaces at home. Then we send a message to everyone who has a piece to pick up. Once you get your message, you can come and collect your pottery!
Before and After
If you’ve never painted pottery before, it can be really difficult to understand just how much your creation will change before and after firing. So, to help you out, here are some pics of our visitors’ past pieces - first freshly-painted, then ready to take home!
-
![]()
Before
-
![]()
After
-
![]()
Before
-
![]()
After
-
![]()
Before
-
![]()
After
-
![]()
Before
-
![]()
After
Come and join in the fun!
Book a session or get in touch with any questions, suggestions or reflections? We'd love to hear them! Just pop your message in that box down there.