17/11/2025
As I’m on a mugs mission I thought I’d do a bit of a run through of some of the steps for one of my swimming coffee cups. The most time consuming part by far is applying handles.
I start by pulling the handle from a sausage of clay and let it dry somewhat. (No photos of this as too messy and also pulling is a slightly unseemly activity 😂.)
1. Shows a mug blank - thrown, then left to dry to leather hard this has been turned to remove excess clay from the foot, create a footring and neaten the bottom. I put in a line for the top of the water so I know where my swimmer will go and some lines for water movement below.
2. I slip and score where the handle will be attached
3. Handle roughly attached
4. Professional potters look away - I add some extra bits of clay to the tops of each join and tidy up. This is a step a true production potter would tackle differently to save time.
5. I add my swimmers
6. Add my stamp at the bottom of the handle
7. Check the alignment of the handle
The mug sits in a damp box for 2 days so handle and mug body can get to know each other and reach an equilibrium of dampness. Then I dry slowly over a few days out of direct heat (both measures to try and avoid warping) before sitting on my radiator for a final blast of heat to get to bone dry.
After bisque firing and glazing, the finished mug.
