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The Clay Hole University · Hand Building

Kurinuki: Carving a Pot from a Solid BlockPrintable pottery guide

The one technique where nothing is joined: shape a solid brick of clay, then dig the pot out of the middle, with the five numbers and the drying habit that decide whether it survives the week.

$7.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Intermediate
  • 31 printable pages
  • 11 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 Kurinuki: Carving a Pot from a Solid Block printable guide?

It is a printable workbook edition of The Clay Hole University’s free “Kurinuki: Carving a Pot from a Solid Block” lesson. Almost everything else in pottery is addition. You add a coil, you join a slab, you pull a wall up out of a lump. Kurinuki is the opposite: one solid block, shaped on the outside first, then hollowed from the top. Nothing is attached, so there is no join to fail and no seam to crack. The guide takes it in order: which clay and how stiff, the whole outside settled while the block is still solid, hollowing in seven moves, a section drawing with the five numbers, drying a piece whose inside is minutes old and whose outside is an hour old, and the feet, rims and glaze that come at leather hard. On paper it adds a carving 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 “Kurinuki: Carving a Pot from a Solid Block” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 31printable pages, US Letter
  • 7quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 11hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 16glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
Why a printable, for this one

You cannot see the wall you are carving

Every other technique lets you look at what you are making. On the wheel the wall is between your fingers. On a slab you can hold it up to the light. Inside a carved block there is nothing to look at: the wall you are cutting is behind an inch of clay, and the only instrument you have is a thumb on the inside and a finger on the outside.

So this is a technique made of numbers and habits rather than of things you watch. How thick the rim, the wall and the floor should be. Why the inside corner gets rounded. Why the outside is finished before anything is hollowed. Why the top face stays closed until the very end. None of that is visible in a video, and all of it fits on a page you can prop up beside the table.

The part that costs people an evening is not the carving at all. It is the drying. Your pot’s inside surface is minutes old and soaking, its outside has been in the air for an hour, and those two faces shrink at different rates. The five things you do in the first twenty four hours decide whether you have a pot or two halves of one, and they are worth having written down where you will actually see them.

Look inside

Real pages, for a table and a loop tool

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

  • Page 6 of the “Kurinuki: Carving a Pot from a Solid Block” printable guide: which clay, and how stiff, shown with the sample watermark
    Which clay, and how stiffThree bodies with an honest verdict on each, the block size for four different pots, and the thumbnail test that tells you whether to start.
  • Page 11 of the “Kurinuki: Carving a Pot from a Solid Block” printable guide: the five numbers, shown with the sample watermark
    The five numbersA section drawing of a finished cup inside the block it came from. Rim, wall, floor, the rounded corner and the undercut.
  • Page 18 of the “Kurinuki: Carving a Pot from a Solid Block” printable guide: eight ways it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    Eight ways it goes wrongEach fault with the cause, what to do about the piece in front of you, and what to change next time.
  • Page 19 of the “Kurinuki: Carving a Pot from a Solid Block” printable guide: the carving log, shown with the sample watermark
    The carving logOne line per pot: the clay, the stiffness, the wall you were aiming for and what it actually came out at.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

Both hands are full of clay for an hour

Kurinuki is a long sitting at a table with a loop tool, and the thing you need most is a number you half remember, at the moment your hands are least able to touch anything.

  • It holds still while you carve

    A video plays on. Nobody has scrubbed back through fifteen minutes of footage with a wet thumb to find the part about wall thickness. A page waits.

  • The numbers are the technique

    A quarter inch at the rim, a quarter to three eighths in the wall, three eighths to half an inch in the floor. Five figures, printed once, glanced at twenty times.

  • The drying list is the one that matters

    It is the only part that can quietly undo an evening four days later, and the only part that costs nothing but patience. It belongs on the shelf beside the pot, not in a tab.

  • You are going to do it again

    The second pot is where this gets good. A log of what the clay was, how stiff it was and what the wall came out at turns three attempts into something you can actually read.

How the guide is built

Built for a long sitting, 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 table, the mistakes that get made first, and what soft leather hard actually feels like under a thumbnail.

  • The order of operations, which is the whole technique

    Outside first while the block is still solid, top face closed until it is done, then hollow. Get that order wrong and no amount of care rescues it.

  • A section drawing with the five numbers on it

    The finished cup drawn inside the block it started as, with the rim, the wall, the floor, the rounded inside corner and the undercut all marked and explained.

  • The drying section, written like it matters

    Five moves for the first twenty four hours, because a carved pot starts with a soaking inside and an hour-old outside and has to be brought back together.

  • Videos you can reach from a printed page

    Eleven videos, including one unedited carve at real pace, 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 “Kurinuki: Carving a Pot from a Solid Block” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

Kurinuki is the fastest way I know to get somebody who has never touched clay to make something they actually like on their first evening, and it is also a real technique that serious potters spend careers on. Both of those are true, 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
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Build a little pottery library

Every guide carries a permanent number. This one is 07.06, 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 make once the first cup survives

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 carving log for your first pots, a section drawing with the five numbers on it, a one page card for the table, a printed quiz with an answer key, and a glossary.
Do I need a wheel or any equipment?
No. A block of clay, a loop tool, a cutting wire and a table. That is genuinely the list, and a loop tool is one of the cheapest things in a pottery shop.
How thick should the walls be?
Thicker than a thrown pot, and the guide gives all five figures with a drawing. A kurinuki pot is supposed to feel carved, so going thin is fighting the technique rather than mastering it.
Is this a beginner technique?
It is a good first evening and it is also not a consolation prize for people who cannot center. The difficulty is all in judgment, because nothing holds your wall honest except your own fingers.
Which clay should I use?
The guide compares three, with a straight verdict on each and the reason behind it. A grogged body is the easy road and porcelain is hard mode, and the guide says why rather than just telling you.
Why do my carved pots crack?
Almost always drying, and usually a sharp inside corner or a rim that dried ahead of the body. Both have a fix that takes seconds, and the guide gives the whole first twenty four hours as a list.
I am not at The Clay Hole. Is it still useful?
Yes, more than most. It needs a table, a block and a loop tool. 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 cut a block in half

Wedge two pounds, pat it square, let it firm up overnight, and carve a cup tomorrow. Keep the page open at the five numbers and the drying list, and write down what the wall came out at. The second one is where this starts being good.

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