
Pottery for Beginners: 3 Main Types of Clay
Creating pottery is a great way to reconnect with nature. It allows you to tap into a tactile experience of making something with your hands from a raw, earthy material known to humankind since ancient times. Did you know our love affair with this moulding magic dates back over 20,000 years ago?
Trends can come and go and materials may fall in and out of favour, but clay is here to stay. Its versatility, adaptability, and durability make it an ideal medium for anyone looking to unleash their inner artist. But before you dive into your next creative project, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the main types of pottery clay.
Know Your Medium
The type of clay you use has a significant impact on the quality of the final product. Therefore, choosing premium-quality clay is essential for achieving the best results. The three main types of clay used in pottery are porcelain, earthenware, and stoneware. Each type holds unique properties suited to different projects.
Porcelain
Porcelain clay is the haute couture of the pottery world. Renowned for its delicate appearance and smooth texture, porcelain is the preferred choice of clay for creating delicate dinnerware, intricate sculptures, fine art pieces sculptures, and more.
Porcelain clay is fired at the highest temperatures of all types, usually between 1200°C to 1400°C. As a result, you end up with a clay body that’s non-porous, translucent, and incredibly strong. Also, when fired it turns into a bright white, translucent material that can beautifully display glazes.
Once dried, you can let the natural white shine or enhance it with delicate details. The pure white colour of porcelain modelling clays provides an ideal neutral backdrop for applying coloured glazes, slips, and underglazes.
Due to its soft, delicate nature, this medium requires moisture throughout the shaping process. When you add water to porcelain clay, it becomes more malleable, but it tends to become too soft or sticky if over-saturated. What this means is that working with porcelain clay requires a delicate balance of moisture, which you can achieve over time.
Patience and practice are essential when working with this material. Due to its sensitivity to moisture, delicate texture and lack of plasticity, porcelain clay can be challenging to work with, especially for beginners. Making objects out of this medium requires skill and experience so you might want to start with more beginner-friendly clays before tackling porcelain.
To increase its workability this material is usually combined with ball clay. This addition adds plasticity, making the porcelain easier to shape and less prone to cracking during the forming process.
Stoneware

Unlike porcelain, stoneware is more durable, less delicate, and has a coarser texture. It is often darker in colour, ranging from greys to darker tones, and is less prone to cracking during the forming process. Also, it has a more earthy, rustic appearance than porcelain, which is sleek and elegant. Many artists prefer this medium due to its affordability, lower firing temperature, and ease of handling.
Next, when it comes to moisture levels, stoneware is more forgiving than porcelain. This gives newbies more freedom to experiment without as much risk of failure. You have more room to learn without the stress of delicate handling.
When fired in a kiln at high temperatures, stoneware clay is a more durable and waterproof material with a stone-like quality. This means it doesn’t allow for liquids to be absorbed or pass through. Being resistant to liquids, stoneware clay is often used for making everyday functional items like mugs, bowls, and plates due to its strength and versatility.
Some simple stoneware projects you can try as a beginner are basic hand-built or thrown mugs, simple bowls, and flat plates. So, whether you’re crafting beautiful pottery or practical kitchenware, stoneware is the perfect material offering a balance of form and function.
Earthenware
Unlike porcelain’s bright white and stoneware’s more neutral tones, earthenware’s rich, distinctive dark reddish tint and warm appearance make it ideal for creating pieces with a more rustic, handcrafted feel. It’s versatile and easy to work with making it the perfect medium for anyone into pottery, especially beginners looking to create pottery with a personal touch.
Next, earthenware is fired at a relatively low temperature, making it more porous than other clays. Thanks to this feature earthenware clay is ideal for making pots that allow for good air breathability. The porous nature of this material facilitates oxygen exchange, allowing the roots of your plants to breathe. Furthermore, after watering your plants, earthenware clay pots naturally absorb and release moisture, helping to regulate the soil’s humidity levels and creating an optimal environment for plants to thrive.
On the downside, this medium is more susceptible to breakage compared to stoneware and porcelain. But if you apply a glaze to the surface there shouldn’t be any issues. Besides improving the durability of your creations, this step also adds colour and shine, making them pop.