You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 08.01

The Clay Hole University · Project Guides

20 Easy Projects Beginners Can Hand-BuildPrintable pottery guide

Twenty things to make with a bag of clay, a table and your hands. No wheel at any point, every one of them ten steps or fewer, and a box to tick beside every step.

$20.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Beginner
  • 42 printable pages
  • 30 video picks
  • 7-question quiz + answer key

Flip through the free sample
  • Instant download
  • Prints on any home printer
  • The full lesson stays free online
The printable, at a glance

What is the 20 Easy Projects Beginners Can Hand-Build printable guide?

It is a printable workbook edition of The Clay Hole University’s free “20 Easy Projects Beginners Can Hand-Build” lesson. Twenty projects, each one a short tick list you can work down with clay on both hands, plus the four moves they are all built from, the five rules that stop a first piece failing, and the eight ways it goes wrong with what actually caused each one.

Prefer to read it online first? The “20 Easy Projects Beginners Can Hand-Build” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 42printable pages, US Letter
  • 144steps in tick lists, across twenty projects
  • 7quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 30hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 20glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
Why a printable, for this one

The problem is not skill. It is not knowing what to make.

The most common thing a brand new potter says is not “I cannot do this.” It is “I do not know what to make.” Those sound similar and they are completely different problems, and only one of them has an answer.

This one does. It is twenty answers, in the order they get easier, and every one of them is something you could finish this week. A pinch pot bowl. A slab mug. A spoon rest. A soap dish that actually drains. A tealight lantern. Ornaments by the dozen out of one slab.

A list like that is no use on a screen. You are standing at a table with wet hands, working down seven steps, and you need to know which one you are on. So it is printed, one project at a time, with a box beside every step and the mistake that project invites written underneath it.

Look inside

Real pages, for a table and a bag of clay

These are actual pages from the guide, shown here with the sample watermark. The full guide has none.

  • Page 8 of the “20 Easy Projects Beginners Can Hand-Build” printable guide: the four moves, shown with the sample watermark
    The four movesPinch, coil, slab and drape. Every project in the guide is one of them or two stuck together, and there is no fifth one waiting for you later.
  • Page 14 of the “20 Easy Projects Beginners Can Hand-Build” printable guide: the slab mug, step by step, shown with the sample watermark
    The slab mug, step by stepThe project every beginner asks for on their first day. All twenty are laid out like this, with a box beside every step and the mistake that project invites underneath.
  • Page 30 of the “20 Easy Projects Beginners Can Hand-Build” printable guide: eight ways it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    Eight ways it goes wrongCracked at a join, cracked across the floor, warped, wavy rim, handle fell off. Each one with what actually caused it.
  • Page 31 of the “20 Easy Projects Beginners Can Hand-Build” printable guide: twenty projects, and how each one came out, shown with the sample watermark
    Twenty projects, and how each one came outOne line per project: the move, the date, the thickest part, what it dried under, and whether it came out whole.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

Wet hands, a table, and seven things to do in order

Hand building is the one part of pottery where you genuinely have both hands in the clay and no way to touch anything. A phone goes dark, needs scrolling back, and ends up with slip on it. A sheet of paper does not.

  • A box beside every step

    144 of them across the twenty projects. Put the page down, do the thing, pick it back up, and you know exactly where you were.

  • One project per page or so

    Carry the one you are making to your table instead of the whole guide, which is what the lesson’s own print buttons do on the web and what the page layout does here.

  • The mistake, before you make it

    Every project ends with the one thing that goes wrong on that project specifically, not a general warning at the end of the guide.

  • All twenty on one page

    The four moves, the five rules and every project with what it teaches, on a single sheet you can keep next to the clay.

How the guide is built

Built for a table, a bag of clay and a drying shelf

Every guide in the series is designed as a workbook first and a document second. For this one that means it opens flat at whichever project you are making and nothing you need is on the page you just turned.

  • A learning dashboard before page one

    What you will learn, what is on the table, the mistakes that get made first, and what a finished piece should look like.

  • The kit and the five rules, up front

    One short list of tools covers all twenty projects, and five rules cover almost every way a hand-built piece fails.

  • Twenty projects, in order of difficulty

    Starting with a pinch pot bowl you can finish without picking up a single tool, ending with tiles and ornaments.

  • Videos you can reach from a printed page

    Thirty of them, from potters with nothing to do with us, each with a note on why it is worth your time and a code to scan.

  • A log for every project

    One line each: what it was, what it dried under, and whether it came out whole. After a few you will know what your own shelf does.

  • Plain words for the jargon

    A twenty term glossary, written the way we would explain it sitting across the table from you.

Why the University is free

The lesson is free. It always will be.

All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free “20 Easy Projects Beginners Can Hand-Build” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

Your first few will not be good, and that is not the point. The point is that they are finished. A finished bad pot is worth ten abandoned good ideas, and nobody should have to pay to be told that.

The University is free and stays free. The guides are the version rebuilt for paper with an unreasonable amount of care, and buying one keeps the free side going.

Thank you. Genuinely.

Dan Pearce, founder of The Clay Hole
Collect them

Build a little pottery library

Every guide carries a permanent number. This one is 08.01, the first of the project guides, and it sits next to the hand building lessons it sends you to. The number never changes and never gets reused, so a shelf of them stays in order.

Put any five printable guides in your cart and the cheapest one is on us. Put in nine and the two cheapest are on us. It happens automatically at checkout, no code to remember.

See every printable guide

  • 5guides in your cart1 on us
  • 9guides in your cart2 on us
Where this leads

The long version of the ones you liked

These lessons pick up where this one leaves off. Each one is free to read now.

Good questions

Before you buy

Is this different from the free lesson?
The teaching is the same, and the free lesson is complete. The printable is the version built for a table: every project on paper with a box beside each step, a log for all twenty, a one page reference with the whole guide on it, and a glossary. If you only want to read it, read it free.
Do I need a wheel?
No, and nothing in it touches one at any point. That is the whole premise. Every project needs a table, a bag of clay and your hands.
Do I need any equipment?
A rolling pin, two strips of wood the same thickness, a needle tool, a rib, a sponge and a board. That covers all twenty. A slab roller is faster for the slabs and is not required.
Which project should I start with?
The pinch pot bowl, unless something else is pulling at you harder. It needs no tools and no setup, and it gives you the feel of clay changing thickness under your fingers, which every other project is quietly built on.
Is it too early for me?
It is written for somebody who has never touched clay. The first project is one pound, two thumbs and about twenty minutes, and the guide says out loud that your first few will not be good and why that does not matter.
I am not at The Clay Hole. Is it still useful?
Yes. The projects need a table and a bag of clay. Where something is specific to our building it says so and is dated, so you can see what applies to you and what is just how we happen to do it.
Do I need a fancy printer?
No. It is built for plain letter paper on a home printer, with the margins and the type sized for it. Nothing runs to the edge.
Can I print it in black and white?
Yes. It is designed to survive it. The tick boxes, the tables and the codes all read the same in grey, and nothing depends on a color to make sense.
Can I print just part of it?
Yes, and this is the one guide where that is the obvious thing to do. Print the one project you are making and the one page reference, and leave the rest on your computer until you need it.
Can I use it on an iPad or laptop instead?
You can, and it reads fine. We would still print it. Hand building is the part of pottery where both hands are in the clay and a screen goes dark at the worst moment.
How do I get it after I buy?
It is delivered the moment the purchase goes through, as a download. You can put it on as many of your own devices as you like and print it as many times as you need.
What if the guide gets updated?
Every edition carries its version number on the last page. When we correct something the free lesson online is corrected too and says so, so the latest wording is always a code scan away.
Can I share it with my class or studio?
The copy is licensed to you, for you. If you would like to use it with a group, ask us about permission or group licensing and we will sort something out.
Are the videos yours?
No. They are from potters with nothing to do with us, picked because they teach the specific thing well, and each one has a note saying why it is there. They are reached by scanning a code, so a printed page still gets you to them.

Print it, and go and make the first one

The gap between somebody who makes pottery and somebody who wishes they made pottery is not talent and it is not tools. It is a first finished piece. Pick the project that made you think oh, I could do that, tick the steps as you go, and get it onto a shelf.

Get the printable · $20.00

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We work hard to make The Clay Hole University accurate, useful, practical, and ridiculously thorough. But pottery is a hands-on craft involving countless variables that no written guide can completely control or anticipate.

Depending on what you are doing, ceramics may involve extreme heat, kilns, electricity, gas, flame, sharp tools, spinning machinery, heavy equipment, pressurized equipment, silica-containing dust, fumes, chemicals, raw materials, stains, oxides, glazes, combustible materials, hot surfaces, breakable objects, and other hazards capable of causing serious injury, illness, property damage, fire, or worse.

These guides are provided for general educational and informational purposes. They are not a substitute for hands-on training, competent supervision, your studio’s safety procedures, applicable laws or codes, Safety Data Sheets, or the instructions and warnings supplied by the manufacturers of your clay, glaze, chemicals, tools, kilns, equipment, protective gear, or other materials.

Studios, kilns, clay bodies, glazes, firing schedules, electrical systems, ventilation systems, equipment, environmental conditions, application thicknesses, material formulations, and individual techniques vary enormously. Something that works beautifully in one situation may fail spectacularly in another. That is part of pottery. Occasionally, it is a very expensive part of pottery.

You are responsible for determining whether any technique, material, combination, firing schedule, tool, or process described in a guide is appropriate and safe for your specific circumstances before using it.

Use appropriate protective equipment. Use adequate ventilation and dust control. Read manufacturer instructions and Safety Data Sheets. Follow your studio’s rules. Obtain qualified instruction when a process or piece of equipment requires it. Test materials and techniques before committing important work to them. If you do not understand how to perform something safely, do not proceed until you do.

Never assume that a ceramic surface, glaze, clay body, firing method, finished vessel, repair, decoration, or other result is food-safe, microwave-safe, dishwasher-safe, oven-safe, structurally sound, chemically stable, or suitable for any particular purpose solely because it appears in or is discussed in one of our guides. Verify suitability independently when it matters.

Ceramics also refuses to sign contracts promising beautiful results. Colors change. Glazes move. Kilns have opinions. Pots crack. Materials interact unexpectedly. Manufacturers reformulate products. Equipment behaves differently. The Clay Hole does not guarantee any particular aesthetic, functional, firing, glazing, structural, or other result.

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Terms version 2026-09-19b