1.Clay
The most obvious is clay. Ceramics are made from clay. And after firing at a very high temperature it becomes strong and durable.
Clays can vary a lot: by colour, by firing temperature, plasticity etc. But it relatively cheap
2. Modelling Tools
A variety of tools can help you to make from a lump of clay a piece of art. In the process, you’ll find your favourite tools, but you may want to try a lot of them at the start. And they are different for different techniques.
3.Glazes
Have you noticed that ceramics vary in colours? Your orange cup with the bright yellow sun doesn’t look like something that comes from nature, and this glossy shine.
Ceramics are covered with glazes. It makes an item waterproof. You don’t want your tea absorbed into your cup. In old times people used different techniques instead of glazing, but now it’s the most convenient way.
Glazes varies in temperatures, colors, textures. Some of them are good for food, some are toxic.
It’s easy to buy them, but some advanced ceramics do their own glazes
4. Ceramics oven
Ceramics oven is the hardest and the most expensive one.
When I decided to try ceramics I hadn't thought about the oven at all. My first ceramics sculpture was from simple clay and I thought that it should dry and become strong (it was a huge mistake). It cracked after drying and I've tried to use plasticine to fix it.You can see the result at my instagram page
In a few years, I had enough money to go to ceramics courses. And what was my surprise, when I realised that you actually need a pretty expensive oven that can hit up to 1300 degrees to be able to make ceramics.
So, you need an oven or a place to fire your pieces.
In general, you can rent a space in an oven in ceramics studios, so it’s not necessary to own an oven. Or you can just attend ceramics courses in your area and in this case you need nothing (if you don’t want to do something at home)
5. A lot of time
Ceramic is a very long process. I wrote about ceramics steps more in this post. But in general, it takes days to finish one item. Ceramics don't like haste.
All the time when I do something in a hurry, something goes wrong. And it’s not the easiest craft. To make something good you should be patient.
What about throwing wheel?
Some people think that pottery and ceramics it’s round-shaped vases that you make at the throwing wheel. But hand-building ceramics is very popular and you can create with hands things are not worse than with a wheel (sometimes even better, because the wheel is a hard one)
Image Sourses: https://startile.la/history/types-of-clay/ , https://pin.it/20b4CWl , https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/ceramics-glazes-for-beginners-4134618 , Photo by Viviane Okubo on Unsplash , Photo by Katarzyna Grabowska on Unsplash