Porcelain Workshop

£250

Friday October 30th & Saturday October 31st -

10am - 4pm.

This two-day porcelain workshop offers a focused and rewarding introduction to throwing and refining elegant mugs and other wheel-thrown forms. Porcelain is a uniquely beautiful and demanding material—renowned for its smoothness, translucency, and refined finish—and this course is designed to help you build confidence, sensitivity, and control when working with it.

You’ll be guided through the complete process of making porcelain mugs, from throwing balanced, considered forms to refining, finishing, and attaching handles. Alongside mugs, you’ll have the opportunity to explore a variety of other forms, developing a deeper understanding of porcelain’s distinctive qualities and possibilities.

We’ll look at the nuances of traditional pulled handles as well as more contemporary approaches, helping you develop both technical skills and a personal design language. Your tutor will also bring a thoughtfully curated collection of mugs and vessels by a range of potters, offering inspiration and insight into form, proportion, surface, and finish. These examples will help deepen your understanding of what makes a successful porcelain piece.

With a strong emphasis on repetition and refinement, the workshop encourages you to revisit and recreate forms—an approach that is both challenging and deeply satisfying, and essential for developing consistency and confidence with porcelain.

While the course is particularly suited to improvers and intermediate makers looking to expand their skills, adventurous beginners are warmly welcome to experience the unique qualities of porcelain for the first time.

Day 1

After studying a selection of reference pieces, we’ll focus on throwing porcelain forms on the wheel. You’ll experiment with shape, scale, and clay weight, aiming to create at least two closely matched mugs alongside additional forms for refinement on the second day.

Day 2

We’ll return to your leather-hard pieces to refine and finish them through turning. You’ll then learn how to attach handles, exploring both traditional pulled techniques and more contemporary variations. If time allows, we’ll also introduce decorative approaches such as slip application, texture, inlay, and carving, taking advantage of the delicate and responsive surface qualities that make porcelain such a rewarding material to work with.