Intermediate handbuilding

About this course

Learners develop individual ceramic ideas through design planning, making and review. Teaching combines demonstrations, examples, group discussion and practical studio work, with consideration of what makes a finished piece successful or convincing. The course explores handbuilding methods including coiling, pinching, press moulding, slab building, extruding, modelling and hollowing. Learners investigate texture and surface treatment, and work with slips, glazes, oxides and commercial colours while assembling and altering clay components into an individual piece or cohesive group of work.

What you'll learn

• Plan personal ceramic work from initial ideas through to making
• Combine handbuilding techniques to create an individual piece or cohesive group of work
• Experiment with texture and surface treatment on and within clay
• Apply slips, glazes, oxides and commercial colours to clay surfaces
• Assemble, alter, model and hollow clay components

Is this course right for you?

This intermediate course is intended for learners who already have some clay-making experience and want to extend their handbuilding practice. Participants are expected to engage with demonstrations, written and verbal instructions, health and safety information, self-review and group discussion.

• Some familiarity with the process of producing a finished fired piece is helpful
• Self-reflection and reviewing personal ways of working form part of the course
• Design research outside class is optional

Before you go

• Tools are available in the department for use, although learners may bring their own.
• Closed shoes must be worn in the ceramics studio; open-toed footwear is not suitable.
• Learners with a pacemaker or internal defibrillator cannot work in the studio while pottery wheels are in use and should contact the Ceramics Department before enrolling.