Seven week introduction to pottery techniques

About this class

An introduction to the fundamental pottery techniques, perfect for complete beginners or anyone who would like to go back to basics, and refresh their skills. Over seven, 3 hour, weekly workshops, you'll be guided step by step through the main hand-building techniques, working with pinching, coiling, soft and leather hard slabs to create individual pieces. We'll also look at the more unusual Japanese carving technique known as 'Kurinuki'. One workshop is dedicated to throwing on the wheel. Here, we guide you through all the stages of creating a small cylinder, from preparing the clay ready to throw, how to master centering and finally pulling up the walls of the clay into a short cylinder. In the following workshop, when your thrown pieces are 'leather hard' you'll learn the basics of how to trim your work on the wheel to refine it's shape and base profile. Throughout the seven weeks we will look at surface decoration, adding texture, colour and glaze to your work. This course is the perfect stepping stone to join one of our intermediate classes. We keep the classes small so that we can tailor our teaching to your needs. All materials are included in the class fee and there is a small additional charge for firing by weight of finished work at £8.50 per kilo. All you need to bring with you is an apron and a notebook. Reserve your place for this block of six weekly three hour classes with a deposit of £96, the balance of £100 can be paid by card or cash at your first class.