Things I got wrong about throwing on the wheel
You can get remarkably far with a banding wheel and some patience. Little, repeatable steps beat big plans very nearly every time.
Odds and ends
I would rather do one thing with care than five things in a hurry. Some of this will be self-evident; some of it took me years. The glaze looked grey in the bucket and came out deep blue. Clay remembers every mistake you make with it. A friend once described glazes as quiet work, and the phrase stuck.
A few details
Below are a few notes, roughly in the order I learned them. I keep notes on every firing, even the disappointing ones. Test tiles are boring until one of them changes all of it. I am still not sure I have it right, but it is closer.
Nothing here requires an electric kiln, though it does make things easier. Between wedging clay and testing glazes, the second one taught me more. Every firing is a little experiment, and some of them fail.
Looking back, the matte approach was the right call. None of this is new, and that is partly why it works. It is not glamorous, but it holds up.
bowlstablewarethe wheel