How to Choose a Pottery Class

The Benefit of Classes

Learning how to make pottery whilst enjoyable in its own right, can be enhanced by professional teaching and sharing of experience with other students.

Classes help people learn quicker and provide the right learning environment to enjoy the experience as well as make friends. This should not be underestimated as many frustrations will become apparent along the way..There are both studio potters who run classes in evenings and weekends as well as local colleges who run part time and full time courses.

Be clear on your needs

One question you need to ask yourself is "do I want to learn the practical skills such as throwing on a wheel or do I want to have a good scientific/artistic understanding?" Knowing this will help define your teaching requirement.

I recently read a debate about when should you call yourself a potter? It was interesting to note that most people shared my view that "you never stop learning in pottery". As pottery making is such a wide subject, you can be an expert in part of it and a mere novice in another area.

Therefore at which point you become expert or call yourself a potter is purely arbitrary.

This point is important as you need to find an expert teacher in the area of pottery in which you want to learn more. 

Choose the right teacher and class

Choosing the right pottery class is not always easy. For example, if you have an interest in learning the basics of  pottery making then joining a class learning about Raku firing is less useful. Similarly if you purely want to learn artistic skills such as hand painting of china as a hobby, there is no need to learn about slip casting of bone china. Clearly it is important to ask the right questions to make sure a class meets your specific needs.

Some helpful links

The following links and brief details of classes may be helpful. Unfortunately I cannot make recommendations as there are so many of which I am not personally familiar. Therefore when making an enquiry please ask for references from previous satisfied clients and ensure that the classes meet your needs etc

Good Luck and enjoy!

Pottery Classes in USA
Directory of Pottery Classes, Courses, Lessons, Events, Workshops, Free Classes, in USA
Pottery classes and Art courses in UK
Directory of Pottery,arts and crafts classes, workshops and painting holidays in Britain and Europe.

More details of individual classes and workshops can be found below:-

Details of UK pottery classes

More information and other technical articles on pottery and ceramics can be found at my website The Potters Friend. Go now to sign up for my free newsletter.

How To Teach Children about Pottery

Make it Fun
You make their first contact with pottery a fun enjoyable experience. Once they have the interest then you might want to add a little practical knowledge. Of course you want your children to be safe so only use safe materials and provide basic hygiene equipment, and instructions such as -wash your hands, and don't put anything in your mouth.

Where should you start?
Most children are familiar with playdo or plasticine. They have probably moulded these into shapes before. So let them use their imagination to form something that means something to them. Air drying or oven bake modelling clay products (suitable only for age over 3 years) similar to plasticine can be used which allow the pieces to be hardened into permanent shapes.

What next?
Once stimulated you might want to demonstrate how to roll a ball and make a sausage of clay and coil it to make a circular shape. Let them experiment making shapes themselves. Once adept at creating coils you might want to show them how to stack the coils to make a bigger shape. Plastic cutters such as used in cookery can be used to cut out shapes from a flattened out clay just like cutting shapes out of pastry.


What about painting colours?
Many of the items once air hardened or oven baked can be painted with acrylic paints. This allows children to learn a painting skill. The use of different size or shape of tip on brushes can help with children of different skill levels or ages. These skills can then be readily adopted and used with ceramic paints as the child progresses to making real pottery.

What about older children?
Older children need more to keep their interest so create a project and set them a challenge of making an item such as a coin tray. The same materials can be used as for younger children.

Alternatively get some real pottery clay and get them used to its feel and how water affects it and allows it to be smoothed or reprocessed when it dries out..  Of course this might become more messy but that's all part of the fun. Learn that large sections of clay crack on drying and why!

Sculpting tools can be used to  allow even more skills to be developed and create a personalisation of the work.

It is important to note that all items produced from the above information should be considered as purely decorative. Under no circumstance should they be used as food contact items.

Real pottery
In order to make real functional pottery special ceramic materials, glaze and colour need to be used as well as firing in a pottery kiln at very high temperatures (greater than 1000C). This requires some specialist knowledge and expertise. Pottery classes would be recommended at this stage to progress in a safe and friendly environment.

Acrylic paints and a domestic oven WILL NOT produce functional pottery.

More information about getting children to work with clay can be found at 'Teaching Tips for clay' Even more information and other technical articles on pottery and ceramics can be found at my website The Potters Friend. Go now to sign up for my free newsletter.

Start Pottery By Getting A Kit

By: Freddy Roy

Pottery is a great skill to learn and a good deal of fun. If you are the type of person that has a mild interest in pottery but aren't sure you want to make the level of commitment required to take a class on pottery you may find that various pottery kits on the market offer some degree of appeal to you and can help you determine if you are ready to go a step further and sign up for some classes or purchase additional materials and equipment in order to further your home education.

Pottery kits are also an excellent idea for kids who seem to have an interest in pottery but often flit from one interest to another fairly quickly without giving too much effort to any. If your child successfully completes a few kits and still exhibits an interest, then perhaps the more substantial investment of lessons may be in order. Kits definitely cost less than the average lessons but also offer fewer options for advanced learning and one on one instruction that can be invaluable when taking pottery lessons.

Pottery kits are much less expensive than taking traditional lessons. This allows you to gaze your true interest in pottery when faced with the reality of what pottery is and is not. You should keep in mind however that there are many other considerations that should not be overlooked when using these kits to judge your real interests in pottery as the kits are often very simple and designed to be fun for beginners though not very challenging. If you are looking for a challenge, it is unlikely you will find that in many of the pottery kits that are on the market today.

Another thing to remember about pottery kits is that the products you make in these kits are not likely to be watertight or able to handle food. This limits the usefulness of these items though it doesn't mean that they aren't good tools for learning the very basics of the craft and having a lot of fun in the process. One great thing about pottery kits is that this is something you can do with your children if you are so inclined and you can all have a fun day together while learning a new skill and making a really big mess. There aren't too many times you can say that with your children that there aren't too many calories involved to count.

Pottery kits can be found to fit many different budgets and a few different levels of pre-existing skills. You can always upgrade equipment later if you find that you really do enjoy the process of working with clay to create pottery pieces and if you decide to upgrade, then you will want to do a good deal of research to ensure you are getting the equipment that will best suit your specific needs, desires, and budget.

Learning to make pottery is a great deal of fun for the right person. Pottery kits offer a glimpse into working with clay and creating pottery for those who aren't quite certain whether or not they want to pursue pottery making on a larger scale. If this is you, pick up a pottery kit today, you can find them easily online and at most local craft supply stores. Remember have fun!

About the Author

To read about flowering pear tree, growing celery and other information, visit the Gardening Central site.

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Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ - Start Pottery By Getting A Kit

Pottery Clinic

Glaze blister at high magnification

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