Making a Pebble Cup from start to finish

The full process of making a Pebble Cup/Mug.

First, the clay needs to be wedged and weighed. I'm throwing a medium size here, so I use 350g of clay for a finished capacity of around 350ml.

Then the mug is thrown. This is the stage that people think of handmade mugs, but in reality it's one of the faster processes. The clay is centred first, then opened, and the walls are pulled up. I then use a rib to smooth the inside as any marks left in the wall will show when it's stamped.

The body is left on the batt overnight before being brought back to the wheel and trimmed. This lets me reduce the weight before adding the stamped pattern, as it wouldn't be possible afterwards.

I use a pebble I found in the woods next to the studio to stamp the pattern into the clay. I try and be as random as possible with the size and depth of the pattern as it gives a really nice variety to the glaze flow.

They're left in a sealed plastic box overnight to firm up a little more. The handles are extruded and left until they are the same level of dryness as the body (the time varies with the weather), then the foot of the mug is trimmed and the handles are attached.

The mugs are then left to dry slowly for about a week before they're loaded into a bisque firing (1025°c), which turns the clay into ceramic. They can now be glazed.

I wax resist the foot of the piece, allowing my car dent puller to grip them. I glaze the outside first, then pour the glaze into the inside. The glazes used here are Selsor Chun, Heath A2V Ivory, and Floating Blue, and the recipes are on glazy.org.

They are then left overnight to dry before being loaded into a cone six (approx 1200°c) firing, where the glazes melt together and flow over the stamped texture to form the final pattern.