15 Pottery Glaze Ideas to Spark Your Creativity

Simple Pottery Glaze Ideas

1. Bright Splatter

A bright splatter design is perfect if you want a bold statement pottery piece! It’s also an easy design to create, as you’ll only need two glazes and some round paintbrushes. Simply paint your pottery with a bright yellow glaze as the base. Then grab a round brush, dip it in your orange glaze, and flick it at your dried base coat!

You can also use another bright color instead if you’re not a fan of orange for this pottery glaze idea. Or you could use a mixture of multiple bright colors for an extra eye-catching look! Just ensure that you don’t wipe the excess glaze off your brush. This is what flies off the brush to make the splatter.

2. Colorful Inner Glaze

Attention-grabbing pottery doesn’t always mean you need to make an intricate and time-consuming design.

An easy way to brighten your pottery is with a colorful inner glaze. You can keep the outer parts of your pottery muted and save the bright color for the inside. And if you need ideas, an eye-catching color to use for this is a red glaze.

You can easily create this pottery glaze idea with some flat paintbrushes and careful brush strokes. But ensure you don’t allow the glaze to pool at the bottom of your pottery. This can change the depth of your piece when it dries and gets fired.

3. Half-and-Half

Another way to combine just two colors is through the half-and-half method. There are two ways to do this. You can simply paint each color onto your pottery. Or you can use the dipping method.

The dipping method involves pouring each glaze into containers and dunking your pottery. It would probably be best to use clear bowls. These will let you see how far you’re dipping the pottery into each glaze.

But you should always use wax resist on the bottom of your pottery for dipping! It will keep the glaze off the base, ensuring it won’t stick in the kiln.

This pottery glaze idea will offer a bold and beautiful look, whichever method you choose!

4. Ombre

If you don’t like the harsh lines from the half-and-half design, you might be more interested in ombre. It’s a pottery glaze idea that uses a combination of different colors and blending.

But, instead of using brushes, you’ll use natural sea sponges for the blending.

This specific idea looks like it uses dark blue, light blue, and plain white glazes. But you can use another color palette if you want.

You’ll start by dabbing the top third of the pottery with the darkest color. Then, dab the middle color below that and use the lightest color on the bottom third.

Try to overlay the colors and use the sponge to blend them. The sponge should help create softer lines, making them look blurred.

5. Stripes

Using stripes as a design option never gets old! Both vertical and horizontal stripes look beautiful on pottery pieces. And your color options are literally endless.

Use whatever color combination you like, whether it’s two colors or 20. Typically, the more colors you use, the more intriguing your pottery piece will be!

Stripes can take a while, especially if you want them to stay relatively straight. But some painter’s tape can make the process much easier and your stripes sharper.

Of course, you can also freehand this pottery glaze idea if you don’t want the stripes to be perfect. Odd lines can create more character!

6. Color Overlay

Have you thought about overlaying colors or creating the illusion of them overlapping? This pottery glaze idea does exactly that!

There are a few ways you can create this beautiful look. The first involves quite literally layering the colors over each other. And the other involves mixing your two colors on a separate surface, like a paper plate.

Then, you’ll paint that mixed color on the overlapped area. It can take some serious precision for the second method. But again, some tape will be your best friend!

The second method can create a more opaque look, while the first can make a translucent look. No method is better than the other. It all depends on the style and look that you like!

7. Color Blocking

The artistic design of color blocking sounds similar to its name. It uses blocks or large sections of color to display contrast. It’s a concept that’s often used in clothing. However, it’s becoming increasingly popular in art as well.

You can use any color combination you want. But artists often use dark colors against white/light colors or vice versa. This specific pottery glaze idea is a perfect example of this with green against white.

If you’d like to use this thick striped color-blocking design, it’s best to use wide brushes. These will allow you to make uniform block-like swipes.

Intricately-Painted Pottery Glaze Ideas

8. Hand-Painted Abstract Florals

If you want something more precise, these hand-painted abstract flowers might be more your style.

You can attempt to create these florals with brushes, but they can make the process more difficult. Instead, you should try using dropper bottles.

You can easily make raised dots and circles with these types of tools. The thin needle ends also allow you to drag the paint around in a cleaner manner, ultimately reducing unwanted smudging.

Try using bright or complimentary colors to really make the abstract florals pop. A pottery glaze idea like this requires a lot of patience, but the beautiful end result will be worth it.

9. Polkadot Diamonds

Using polka dots to create designs is a fun and intriguing way to add character to your pottery. This pottery glaze idea uses them to create diamond shapes that wrap around the entire piece.

While this idea uses two colors, you can choose to use one. Or you can even use a different color for each dot. It might take a while, but a colorful and busy design like that can make a great statement piece!

It can be challenging trying to make perfect circles. So, for something like this, sponge stipplers can be helpful. You only need to dip the sponge in the glaze and apply it to your pottery. Just be sure to use gentle pressure, or the glaze might drip.

10. Dainty Flowers

Glazing dainty flowers is a beautiful way to bring a cottage-like feel to your pottery.

The best way to make this floral pattern is to freehand the flowers and dots. It will further display the handmade look and allow you to create many different flower types. No two flowers will look the same, and that’s okay! It’s more appealing to the eye this way.

You’ll need a variety of paintbrushes for a pottery glaze idea like this. Different shaped and sized brush heads will help you create varying petal and leaf types.

Try making daisies, tulips, daffodils, lilies, and more! You can also stick to one flower type for a more uniform look.

11. Stippled Mandala

Many people use mandalas in artwork, clothing, jewelry, and other things. Pottery is no exception from these beautiful and intricate designs!

Mandalas often use a mixture of lines and dots. But this pottery glaze idea solely uses stippled dots. It’s a stunning and mind-blowing design that can take a lot of time. But the beauty is worth it, and you’ll be so proud of the result.

To make perfectly circular dots like these, a set of detailing brushes will be your best friend. You’ll be able to make many different-sized dots with these, and they’ll be almost flawless each time.

12. Zig Zags and Dots

Why choose between zig zags or dots when you can have both? A pottery glaze idea like this combines two intricately perfect designs in one!

You can use any colors you want for something like this. But using black on white or vice versa makes a very bold look. These colors will also match most home decor options due to their neutrality.

This detailed design requires plenty of focus, as you don’t want it to be rough-looking. An angled brush may be helpful, as you can see underneath it and your hand. Remember to use gentle pressure to prevent the brush from fanning out.

Abstract Pottery Glaze Ideas

13. Dripping Color

A dripping effect is an excellent way to glaze your pottery, as it doesn’t require extreme precision and looks cool.

Abstract pottery glaze ideas like this can be easy with thick, round brushes. You’ll simply paint on your base glaze color. Then, you can dip the round brush into your drip color.

But don’t scrape off the excess glaze, as you’ll want to scrape that on the rim of your pottery design. Gravity should do its job with this and allow the glob of glaze to drip downwards.

It can be difficult to control the length of the drip with this method. So, if you’re nervous about that, you can also paint the drips manually.

14. Iridescent Oil Slick

Have you ever felt mesmerized by all the colors within an oil slick? Well, you can incorporate that into your pottery!

The best way to do this is to combine colored glazes with a metallic glaze to mimic the oil look.

You’ll need to create abstract puddle-like shapes with your glaze and blend the colors into each other. Have fun with the design, and make it as abstract as possible.

Harsh lines aren’t the best for this type of pottery glaze idea. The metallic glaze can be great for accents or large areas. It depends on how shiny you want your pottery to look.

15. Marble Stripe

Do you like the look of marble countertops? You can make your beautiful pottery look like a fresh slab of marble with some luster overglaze!

You’ll want to apply your neutral base coat of glaze and pick one color to dab and blend onto it. This specific pottery glaze idea uses pink glaze. But you can use any other color that you like.

Simply dab a loose stripe of this color around your pottery, allow it to dry, and fire it. Then, you can loosely paint a line of luster overglaze below the stripe to create the illusion of sparkly marble.

An idea like this will look beautiful on any type of pottery. But it’ll look especially great on mugs or vases.