Hand-Building Pottery Series

A hand-building pottery course for adults, aimed at beginners, running across four sessions. Students will learn the basics of creating with clay, in a friendly, supportive and fun environment. Each student will have about four fired pieces to take home at the end of the course.

Course Outline

There will be three sessions of about 2.5 hours each, and one final session of about 1 hour. These will be run at the same time every week 10 am 19, 26 Sept, and 17, 24 Oct.

Ticket price is for all four sessions.

All materials supplied.

Session One

• Introductions and previous potting experience

• Health and safety with clay and the importance of cleaning up

• How to wedge (ram’s head or slam)

• Creating and using a maker’s mark to identify your work

• First project: Pinch Pot #1 - decorated cup/tumbler

  • Pinch Pot technique

  • Carving to decorate

  • Using underglaze to decorate

• How and why to cover when storing pieces

• Next steps (bisque/glaze firing process) and recap

Session Two:

• Second project: Pinch Pot #2, adding in:

  • How to keep building with coils

  • How to score and slip to attach clay

  • How to make and attach handles (rolled slab, then cut and shaped)

• Third project: basic slab or slump form:

  • How to create a slab of clay (without a slab roller)

  • Using river rocks as a slump form

  • Attaching a foot

Session Three:

• Applying underglazes

• How to glaze pots

• Selecting and applying glaze to the bisqued pots

Session Four:

• Pickup fired pieces and sand the bottoms

• Debrief - how did the pieces come out? What are possible next steps to keep potting?