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The Clay Hole University · Surface and Decoration

Carving and SgraffitoPrintable pottery guide

Cut a drawing into a pot at the moment the clay is ready for it, choose the tool and the depth, and stop losing carved pieces to chips, smears and cracks.

$10.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Intermediate
  • 30 printable pages
  • 8 video picks
  • 8-question quiz + answer key

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

What is the Carving and Sgraffito printable guide?

It is the carving bench on paper: how carving differs from sgraffito, how to find the moisture window with a thumbnail and with the shine of a coating, eight tools and what each is for, the depth limit that keeps a wall whole, sgraffito in steps, five ways to carve, mishima, how to clear burrs and crumbs safely, and what glaze does to every cut. Built to be printed, kept beside the wheel and written in.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Carving and Sgraffito” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 30printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 8hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 20glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
For the piece that chipped, smeared or cracked

It was never your drawing

A carved pot is decided before the tool touches it. Cut a little soon and the line smudges shut. Cut a little late and the edge flakes. Cut too deep into a thin wall and the crack shows up in the bisque, through the best line on the pot. None of that is about how well you draw.

That is good news, because timing and depth are things you can learn. A thumbnail tells you whether clay is ready. The shine on a coating tells you whether sgraffito is ready. A simple limit on depth keeps a wall whole.

The guide lays that out in order, from the coating to the glaze, and gives you a page to write down the stage you cut each piece at and what came out of the kiln, so the next one starts from a note and not a guess.

Look inside

Real pages, for the bench beside your work

These are actual pages from the guide, shown here with the sample watermark.

  • Page 3 of the “Carving and Sgraffito” printable guide: before you begin, shown with the sample watermark
    Before you beginOne page before you pick up a tool: what you will learn, what to have on the bench, what is worth knowing, the common pitfalls and what a good cut looks like.
  • Page 6 of the “Carving and Sgraffito” printable guide: the moisture window, shown with the sample watermark
    The moisture windowThe two tests for finding the window, the thumbnail and the shine of a coating, and a table of the four stages with what each is good for and what goes wrong.
  • Page 19 of the “Carving and Sgraffito” printable guide: six things that go wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    Six things that go wrongA chip, a smear, a gray blur, a crack in the bisque, a carving that vanished and a coating that flaked, each one read back to its cause with what to do next time.
  • Page 23 of the “Carving and Sgraffito” printable guide: every piece you carve, shown with the sample watermark
    Every piece you carveA log to write in: the technique, the stage you cut it at, the wall and the depth, the coating and the glaze, and what happened. A few rows in and the next piece starts from a note.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Why this one belongs on paper

Carving is done with clay on your hands

The steps are short and the stakes are in the timing, which is not a moment to be scrolling a screen. Paper sits still beside the wheel.

  • The sheet stays in view

    The one page sheet has what to do before you cut, while you cut and after you cut. Pin it up at the bench and it is there when a glance is all you have.

  • It holds still

    A page stays where you put it while you test a thumbnail against the foot or watch a coating lose its shine. It does not lock its screen, and it does not mind wet hands.

  • A stage to write down

    The log has a column for the stage you cut each piece at. The next piece of that kind starts from a real note instead of a hunch.

  • A fault index for the shelf

    The at a glance page has the four stages, the numbers worth remembering and six faults read back to their causes. It pins up beside your work.

How this one is built

Rebuilt for paper, not printed from a web page

Every guide in the series is set from scratch for print. Here is what that meant for this one.

  • Dust habits, said plainly

    Scraping or brushing bone dry clay makes silica dust. The guide says to scrape at leather hard, to brush gently over a damp towel, and to wipe the table down wet. The free lesson now says the same.

  • One way to hold the window open

    How to keep a piece at leather hard between visits, and what not to expect from a piece that has already gone bone dry. The guide and the lesson now agree with the drying lessons.

  • Video notes that say what the video shows

    Several notes in the free lesson described things their videos do not show. We checked each against the video’s own description, chapters and frames, and rewrote them in the guide and in the lesson.

  • Written for any studio

    The Clay Hole’s own rules, such as the kiln cookie under every piece, its underglaze brands and its prices, are named and dated as Clay Hole facts, so a reader working somewhere else knows which line is ours.

  • A quiz that explains itself

    A short quiz, and an answer key that gives the reason behind every answer rather than only the letter.

  • Codes that keep working

    Every link is a short Clay Hole address. If a video moves, we repoint the address and your printed copy still goes to the right place.

Why the University is free

The lesson is free. It always will be.

All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free “Carving and Sgraffito” lesson, and that lesson is not going anywhere.

You do not need to draw well to carve well. A blade does not care that your hand wobbled, and a shape cut out of a dark field looks like a decision even when it was an accident.

What loses pots is timing, and timing is something your hands can learn. Between soon and late there is a short stretch when the blade just glides, and once your hands have felt it they know where to look.

So pick up a scrap and cut a few lines at different stages. Then do it on something you care about.

Dan Pearce, founder of The Clay Hole
The series

Build a little pottery library

Every printable guide in The Clay Hole University series takes one free lesson and rebuilds it for paper, with workbook pages, a glossary and a quiz with a worked answer key. Each one keeps its number for good, so a guide you buy today is the same guide in the same place next year.

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
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Sits next to

Three lessons that pick up where this one leaves off

Each one is free to read online, and the codes in the guide take you straight there.

Questions

Good to know

How is this different from the free lesson?
The teaching is the same, and the free lesson is not going anywhere. The guide is that teaching rebuilt for paper: a learning dashboard at the front, a one page sheet, a log to write in, an at a glance page, a glossary and a quiz with an answer key that explains every answer.
Is this only for sgraffito?
No. Sgraffito is the main event, but the guide also covers incising, relief carving, fluting, faceting and chattering, and mishima, which is carving in reverse. They all come back to the same skill: catching the clay at the right moment.
What do I need to try it?
A sgraffito tool, a needle tool and a loop tool, a soft dry brush, a metal rib, and underglaze, an engobe or a colored slip for the coating. A banding wheel and a scrap slab to practice on help. The guide lists what to have on its first pages.
Is this too early for me?
It is marked Intermediate in the University. If you have made a pot and taken it to leather hard, you can use it. The cuts are simple, and the guide is mostly about timing.
Does it only work at The Clay Hole?
The teaching works anywhere. A few lines are about the studio, such as its underglaze brands, its tool levels and its rule that every piece goes on a kiln cookie, and they are named as The Clay Hole’s so you can swap in your own.
Can I carve a piece that is already bisqued?
The guide says why that is not the way to do it: bisque grinds rather than cuts and makes dust. It teaches carving at leather hard and what to do for a piece that has dried past the window.
Do I need a fancy printer?
No. It is set for an ordinary home or office printer on regular US Letter paper, with nothing important near the edges, so normal printer margins cut nothing off.
Does it print in black and white?
Yes. Nothing in it depends on color to make sense: the text, the tick boxes and the tables are black on white, and color is used for headings and small labels.
Can I print just part of it?
Yes, and most people do. The one page sheet and the at a glance page are the two worth having at the bench. They are numbered pages like any other, so you can print those and leave the rest on a screen.
Can I read it on a screen instead?
Yes. It is an ordinary PDF and it reads fine on a tablet or a phone. The workbook pages are the ones that want paper, because you write on them.
How does delivery work?
It is a digital download. The link arrives by email and on the order confirmation page right after checkout, so you can have it printed and beside the wheel the same evening.
What happens if the guide is updated?
Every edition carries its version number on the last page. When we correct or improve one, the new edition replaces the old one in the shop, and we can send the updated link to anybody who already bought it.
Can I share it?
It is licensed for your own use. Print as many copies for yourself as you like, on as many of your own devices as you like. Please do not pass the file on, upload it or use it with a class or a group without asking us first.

Find the window, and cut

Test the clay with your thumbnail, cut through the coating when the shine has gone, keep every cut inside the depth limit, and clear the crumbs without a wet sponge. Those habits take seconds and decide whether the pot comes out of the kiln with a line worth seeing. The guide keeps them in front of you at the bench.

Get the guide · $10.00

The Clay Hole University Printable Guide Terms

Licensing, safety, digital delivery, and refund terms

Your copy is yours. The guide is not.

Your purchase gives one individual purchaser a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license for personal use only. You may download the guide to your own devices, print copies for your own use, write all over them, spill clay water on them, replace a coffee-damaged copy, and generally use the heck out of what you bought.

What you may not do is distribute the guide to anyone else, whether you charge for it or not.

That means you may not share, forward, email, upload, post, publish, copy, reproduce, resell, sublicense, redistribute, or otherwise provide the guide, or any substantial portion of it, to another person. You may not place it in a shared drive, group chat, membership library, online community, file-sharing service, studio resource folder, classroom packet, employee handbook, course, workshop, or other shared collection. You may not make copies for students, members, employees, friends, classes, studios, schools, groups, or organizations.

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If you would like to use one of our guides with a class, studio, school, team, or other group, contact The Clay Hole about permission or group licensing. Please do not make twenty copies and call it manifesting.

Pottery is wonderfully unpredictable. It also carries real risk.

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.

By choosing to use the information in a guide, you accept responsibility for your own materials, equipment, workspace, safety decisions, testing, methods, and results. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, The Clay Hole and its owners, employees, contributors, and affiliates are not responsible for injury, illness, property damage, lost work, failed projects, kiln or equipment damage, financial loss, or other loss arising from or related to your use of, or reliance upon, the guide.

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If the file you receive is corrupted, inaccessible, materially different from what was described, or there is a genuine technical problem with delivery, please contact us. We would much rather fix the problem than leave you staring angrily at a PDF that refuses to PDF.

Terms version 2026-09-19b