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The Clay Hole University · Hand Building

How to Use Sprig MoldsPrintable pottery guide

Pressing a sprig takes about four seconds. Getting it to still be there after two firings is the rest of the guide, and it is almost all decided at the moment it goes on the pot.

$7.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Intermediate
  • 27 printable pages
  • 9 video picks
  • 8-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 How to Use Sprig Molds printable guide?

It is a printable workbook edition of The Clay Hole University’s free “How to Use Sprig Molds” lesson. A sprig is a small piece of clay shaped in a mold and stuck onto a pot. Shaping it is easy. Almost every sprig that fails, fails at the moment it went on, and the guide is built around that: what a sprig is, five kinds of mold and which you can use, making your own bisque mold in seven steps, pressing a clean one, attaching it so it is still there in three weeks, then drying, glazing and firing a sprigged piece. On paper it adds a sprig log, a one page card for the table, a printed quiz with a full answer key, and a glossary.

Prefer to read it online first? The “How to Use Sprig Molds” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 27printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 9hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 16glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
Why a printable, for this one

It comes off in the kiln, and you find out weeks later

A sprig that fails does not fail while you are pressing it. It falls off in a bisque firing, or a hairline crack opens around its edge as it dries overnight, and by then the cause is three weeks behind you. Six failures cover almost everything, and each has one most likely cause.

Nearly all of them come back to the same moment: the sprig went onto the pot drier than the pot, or it was pressed on flat instead of from the center outward, or it went onto clay that was too far gone to bond. Those are rules, not techniques, and rules belong on a page beside your hands.

The rest is the part nobody tells you: what state the pot has to be in, why bone dry and bisque are both out, and how to dry a sprigged piece so the two bits of clay shrink as one thing.

Look inside

Real pages, for a bench and a small piece of clay

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

  • Page 6 of the “How to Use Sprig Molds” printable guide: five kinds of sprig mold, shown with the sample watermark
    Five kinds of sprig moldWhat each one is made of, how it releases, how much detail it holds, and which of them you can use here.
  • Page 11 of the “How to Use Sprig Molds” printable guide: attaching it so it stays on, shown with the sample watermark
    Attaching it so it stays onThe section that matters. What state the pot has to be in, matching the moisture, and placing it before it touches.
  • Page 17 of the “How to Use Sprig Molds” printable guide: when it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    When it goes wrongSix failures, each with the one cause it usually is, and what to change next time. It is almost never what people guess.
  • Page 16 of the “How to Use Sprig Molds” printable guide: the sprig log, shown with the sample watermark
    The sprig logOne line per piece: the mold, the clay state, how it was attached and whether it survived the kiln.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

The rules matter more than the technique

Pressing a sprig is four seconds of easy work. Everything that decides whether it lasts is a short list of conditions, checked at the moment your hands are full of wet clay.

  • Leather hard or soft. Nothing else

    Not bone dry, not bisque, and the guide says exactly why each of those tears itself apart. That is one line, and it prevents most failures.

  • Match the moisture, or come in wetter

    Two pieces of clay at the same moisture shrink together as one thing. A dry sprig on a damp pot opens its own join while you sleep.

  • Six failures, six causes

    Each one printed with the cause it usually is. Having them on paper turns a ruined piece into something you can stop repeating.

  • A log, because sprigs repeat

    The same mold and the same clay state should give the same result. A line per piece is how you find out which of your habits is the problem.

How the guide is built

Built for the bench, not a four minute demonstration

Every guide in the series is designed as a workbook first and a document second. For this one, that means:

  • A learning dashboard before page one

    What you will learn, what is on the bench, the mistakes that get made first, and what a sprig that will actually stay on looks like going down.

  • Five kinds of mold, compared honestly

    What each is made of, how it releases, how much detail it holds, and which ones you are allowed to make in the building.

  • Making your own bisque mold

    Seven steps, from a pad of clay to a mold you own, which is the one to learn because bisque releases clay beautifully and costs you a scrap.

  • The attaching section, given the weight it deserves

    Nearly every sprig that fails, fails here. The pot’s state, matching the moisture, placing it before it touches, and pressing from the center outward.

  • Videos you can reach from a printed page

    Nine videos, each with a note on why it is worth your time and a code that goes straight to it.

  • Plain words for the jargon

    A sixteen 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 “How to Use Sprig Molds” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

Sprigging looks like the easiest decoration in the building and it has the highest failure rate of anything we teach, because nobody tells you what state the pot has to be in. Saying that out loud costs nothing, so the lesson stays free.

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 07.05, in the hand building section, alongside pinching, coiling and slab work. 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.

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Where this leads

What to try once one survives the kiln

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 adds a sprig log, the short version on one card for the bench, a printed quiz with an answer key, and a glossary.
Do I need to buy a sprig mold?
No. The guide has seven steps for making your own from a pad of clay and a bisque firing, and that is the kind we recommend learning on.
Why do my sprigs fall off in the kiln?
Trapped air, nearly every time. Pressed on flat instead of from the center outward, so the pocket underneath expanded and pushed it off. The guide gives the motion that prevents it.
Can I put a sprig on a bone dry or bisqued pot?
No, and the guide explains what happens if you try. Leather hard or soft clay only, because the two pieces have to shrink together.
Why does a crack open around the edge of my sprig?
A moisture mismatch or drying too fast. Press fresh sprigs, attach them wet, and dry the finished piece slowly under cover.
Is this too advanced for me?
If you can roll a ball of clay you can press a sprig. The difficulty is not in your hands, it is in a short list of conditions, and the guide is mostly that list.
I am not at The Clay Hole. Is it still useful?
Yes, more than most. It needs a table and two hands. The page about our own clay is marked as ours, and the studio numbers carry the date they were true.
Do I need a fancy printer?
No. It is designed 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.
Can I print it in black and white?
Yes. Nothing depends on color, and we looked at the workbook pages in grayscale to be sure.
Can I use it on an iPad or laptop instead?
Yes. Every QR code in the guide is also a tappable link, so on a screen you just tap instead of scanning.
How do I get it after I buy?
Right after checkout you get a download link by email and on your order confirmation page. Each link works up to seven times.
What if the guide gets updated?
Every edition carries a version number. When we correct or improve a guide, everyone who bought it gets an email with the new edition at no charge.
Can I share it with my class or studio?
Please don’t. It is licensed for your own personal use. Anyone can read the full lesson free online, and the printable is here if they want their own copy.

Print it, and go and press one

Make a bisque mold out of a scrap, press a sprig, and put it on a leather hard pot at the same moisture, from the center outward. Keep the page open at the attaching section and write down what the clay state was. That log is what turns this from luck into a habit.

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