Adult Learning | Pottery Basics

Get ready to get your hands dirty and your creativity flowing in this pottery course! Over four Saturdays, you’ll delve into various pottery techniques – slab building, coiling, pinch potting, and underglazing – to mould your skills and your own pieces to take home.

This class is designed to inspire and challenge at every skill level – it is suitable for everyone, whether you’re a beginner or experienced.

Techniques learned

• Slab building: Learn the art of constructing ceramic pieces using slabs of clay. Explore texture, form and structure as you create unique pieces such as trays, plates and paint palettes.
• Coiling: Discover the ancient technique of coiling, in which you'll coil ropes of clay to build vessels with beautiful organic shapes. From bowls to vases, you'll experiment with different coil sizes and patterns.
• Pinch pot: Dive into the meditative process of pinch pottery, shaping clay with your fingers to create hand-printed pieces. Explore different pinch techniques to craft cups, plant pots and jugs.
• Underglazes: Paint with different colours while exploring carving techniques, texture and contemporary designs.

At the end of session 4, your pieces will be ready to get bone-dry (1 week) then get bisque fired and dipped into a glossy clear glaze before getting into the last glaze firing (1 week). Pieces will be ready for collection in 3 weeks.

Please note, clay, tools and glazes are provided. We ask that you bring a hand towel and an apron. 

Image credit: Catherine Guevara