You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 07.07

The Clay Hole University · Hand Building

Nerikomi, Patterned Colored ClayPrintable pottery guide

Pattern built into the clay body rather than painted on it, so when you cut the piece in half the design is still there in cross section.

$12.505 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Advanced
  • 33 printable pages
  • 6 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 Nerikomi, Patterned Colored Clay printable guide?

It is a printable workbook edition of The Clay Hole University’s free “Nerikomi, Patterned Colored Clay” lesson. Every other decorating technique sits on the surface. Nerikomi goes all the way through the wall: you stack colored clays into a solid block, slice across it, and every slice carries the same design. The guide runs the whole method in order, starting with the decision that actually decides whether the piece survives, which clays shrink alike, then coloring your own with stains, building and slicing the block, rolling it into a slab, forming it, and finishing it without smearing the thing you just spent two hours building. On paper it adds a block log, a bench card for the slab roller, a one page nerikomi card, a printed quiz with a full answer key, and a glossary.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Nerikomi, Patterned Colored Clay” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 33printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 6hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 16glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
Why a printable, for this one

All the decisions happen before you can see the design

It is the closest thing pottery has to millefiori glasswork, and it behaves the same way: you are building a picture in cross section, and you do not find out what you made until you slice the block. Everything that goes wrong was decided an hour earlier, while it still looked like a lump.

Most of those decisions are numbers. Which clays shrink within a point of each other, because a mismatch pulls apart at every color boundary and the boundary is exactly where the piece is weakest. How much stain a dark needs against a pastel. How many folds gives how many bands. None of that is visible in a video and all of it fits on a page beside the slab roller.

There is safety in here too, and it is the reason this guide is worth having on paper rather than half remembered. Weighing dry stain powder is the one moment in this technique that needs a rated respirator, and the guide says which one and why, in a line you can read with your hands full.

Look inside

Real pages, for a bench and a slab roller

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

  • Page 6 of the “Nerikomi, Patterned Colored Clay” printable guide: pick clays that shrink alike, shown with the sample watermark
    Pick clays that shrink alikeAll eight bodies with their published shrinkage, the five that make a matched set, and the pairing to avoid.
  • Page 10 of the “Nerikomi, Patterned Colored Clay” printable guide: building the block, shown with the sample watermark
    Building the blockFour ways to build one, easiest first, and what each one does to the pattern when you slice it.
  • Page 19 of the “Nerikomi, Patterned Colored Clay” printable guide: nine ways it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    Nine ways it goes wrongEach failure with the cause it usually is, which is almost never the one people guess.
  • Page 22 of the “Nerikomi, Patterned Colored Clay” printable guide: the block log, shown with the sample watermark
    The block logOne row per block: the clays, the colors, the percentages, how the first slice read and what came out of the kiln.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

Both hands are colored, and the numbers matter

Nerikomi is an evening at a bench with stained clay on every finger, and the things you need at the worst moment are a percentage, a shrinkage figure and a safety line.

  • The shrinkage table, printed

    Eight bodies, their published figures, and which five can be laminated to each other. Get this wrong and the piece splits at every color boundary.

  • Stain percentages you can glance at

    What a black needs against what a pastel needs. Wet colored clay all looks like mud, and nobody remembers a percentage a month later.

  • The respirator line, where you will see it

    Weighing dry stain is the one moment here that needs a P100. On paper, beside the scale, not three taps into a page you are not touching.

  • A block log, because blocks repeat

    The clays, the colors, the percentages, before you start stacking. Then how the first slice read and what came out of the glaze firing.

How the guide is built

Built for a 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 block that will slice cleanly looks like before you cut it.

  • The decision that decides the piece, first

    Which clays shrink alike, with all eight bodies in a table, the five that make a matched set, and the pairing that is a crack on purpose.

  • Coloring your own, with the safety written plainly

    Stain percentages by the look you are after, the paste method, and a rated respirator named rather than “a mask”.

  • Four ways to build a block, easiest first

    What each one does to the pattern, in the order we would learn them, because the throwing barely changes and the block does.

  • Videos you can reach from a printed page

    Six 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 “Nerikomi, Patterned Colored Clay” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

Nerikomi is the one technique where you cannot see what you are making until you cut it open, and that is exactly why people fall for it. Teaching it properly means saying the unglamorous parts out loud, the shrinkage and the respirator, 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 07.07, 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.

See every printable guide

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Where this leads

What to try once a block slices clean

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 block log, a bench card for the slab roller, the whole technique on one card, a printed quiz with an answer key, and a glossary.
Which clays can I put together?
Any two that shrink within about a point of each other. The guide prints all eight of our bodies with their published shrinkage and names the five that make a matched set.
Do I have to color my own clay?
No, and the guide says so plainly. Two bodies straight off the shelf give you contrast with no stains, no scale and nothing to buy. Coloring your own is the second route.
What do I need to weigh stain safely?
A P100 half mask and gloves, and the guide says why an N95 is the floor and a paper or cloth mask is not protection at all. That is the one moment in this technique that needs it.
Why does my pattern go muddy?
Usually throwing or rolling smeared slip across the surface, and the pattern is still underneath. A metal rib at leather hard takes the skin off and the colors read clean again.
Is this too advanced for me?
It is the hardest thing in the hand building section and it is not out of reach. The guide starts with two bodies off the shelf and a small tile, which is an evening rather than a project.
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 build a striped block

Two matched clays, no stains, a few folds, slice it and roll the slices into a tile. Keep the page open at the shrinkage table and write the pairing in the log. You will learn more from that one tile than from any amount of reading.

Get the printable · $12.50

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