10 Weeks Pottery Course

Discover the joy of pottery in this immersive ten-week pottery class in London. Whether you're an absolute beginner or a seasoned potter, looking to refresh your skills, this workshop is the perfect opportunity to learn and create beautiful handmade pottery.

Throughout the course, you'll explore both wheel throwing and hand building techniques with the main focus on wheel work. With a small class size of only seven people, and two teachers, you'll have plenty of individual attention and support.

In this pottery class, you'll learn how to wedge clay and master the art of throwing on the wheel. Step-by-step demonstrations will guide you through centering, opening, and pulling up the walls of your pots. Starting with basic cylinders, you'll progress to crafting mugs, cups, bowls, and even vases. By the end of the course, you can expect to have created 7-10 unique pieces of pottery.

But it doesn't stop there. You'll also delve into the art of trimming, refining the shape of your pots, and adding distinctive foot rings. Impress your friends and family with your handle-making skills as you add the finishing touches to your mugs.

With a dedicated session on glazing, you'll learn the techniques to bring vibrant colors to your creations. Choose from a selection of 14 glazes to create beautiful, one-of-a-kind finishes.

Additionally, you'll explore the world of hand building, from pinching and coiling to slab building. Your teacher will guide you through projects such as lidded pots, where you can combine all three techniques. Get creative with decorative design as you experiment with textured surfaces, facets, or bold patterns using colored slips. And with the course finishing just in time for Christmas, you'll have the perfect handmade gifts to share with your loved ones.

Join us for this pottery class in London, learn a new skill, and immerse yourself in the art of pottery making.

Week One - Throwing on the wheel - You will be taught how to wedge your clay in preparation for throwing on the wheel. This is followed by a step by step demonstration on how to centre, open and pull up the walls of your pot. We will concentrate on throwing cylinders with the eventual aim of turning them into mugs and cups.

Week Two - Throwing on the wheel -This is an opportunity to extend your knowledge in throwing. Starting with the cylinder, we will move onto throwing different types of bowls such as pasta bowls (wide, flat bowls) and ramen bowls (deep, flaring bowls).

Week Three - Introduction to trimming on the wheel - This session involves trimming excess clay from your pots, refining the silhouette (shape) of your pots and creating foot rings. All will be explained on your class.

Week Four - On this session in addition to building up your trimming skills you will be shown how to make handles. Now is the time to finish trimming all your work, leaving enough time to add handles to your mugs.

Week Five - Glazing - You will be introduced to glazing and taught how to glaze your pots. With 14 glazes to choose from, it’s a chance to really have fun with colour.

Week Six - Hand Building - There are three main hand building techniques - pinching, coiling and slab building. Your teacher will demonstrate all three and then suggest a project, such as a lidded pot, where you can combine all three in a single piece. If you already have a project in mind, you can work on this.

Week Seven - Hand Building - This session is all about surface finishes and decorative design. This is an opportunity to explore decorative techniques which can also be applied to wheel thrown work. Using a hump mould, you will create a bowl and choose one or more decorative finishes to complete your piece. This can be a textured surface using printing blocks or perhaps cutting into the clay to form facets. Alternatively paper resist or stencilling can be used for designing quick bold patterns painted onto your work using coloured slips (i.e. coloured clays).

Week Eight - Throwing on the wheel - On week eight we will be back at the wheel. This is your opportunity to recap what you learned on week one and two, but also to challenge yourself by throwing taller and trying out more complex shaping techniques. The focus of this session will therefore be throwing vases. If you are a tiny pot fan, now is your opportunity to try your hand at making miniature vases and shaped forms.

Week Nine - Trimming on the wheel - In addition to trimming your work, if there is time, you can apply some of the decorative techniques, learned in hand building, to your work.

Week Ten - Glazing - This is the final session of the course and you will glaze all your remaining pieces (both the hand building and wheel thrown work made on week six through to week eight). The benefit of doing two glaze sessions is that you now, based on the outcome of your first glaze session (your pots made during the first part of the course -week one through to five- will have been returned to you) have a much better idea of which colours or effects work best for you.

Beginners are welcome as well as potters who already have skills.
  All materials such as clay and tools are included and attendees can expect to make 10 pots.
  An apron. (We do have spares if you forget).
 

This class series runs over 10 consecutive sessions, at the same time every week.