You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 06.04

The Clay Hole University · Advanced Throwing

Open and Closed SpheresPrintable pottery guide

Two forms that are thrown almost identically right up to the last thirty seconds, and the thirty seconds where nearly everybody loses one.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Advanced
  • 32 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 Open and Closed Spheres printable guide?

It is a printable workbook edition of The Clay Hole University’s free “Open and Closed Spheres” lesson. It covers what actually reads as round, the collaring move that everything else depends on, the open sphere and the closed sphere step by step, what the trapped air is really doing in there, and the half nobody films, which is the hole, the drying and the round bottom. On paper it adds a row for every sphere you attempt, a diagnosis section for the fourteen ways it goes wrong, a one page card for beside the wheel, a quiz with a full answer key, and a glossary.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Open and Closed Spheres” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 32printable 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

Both pots go the same way until the moment they do not

An open sphere and a closed sphere are the same pot for almost their whole life. Same clay, same centering, same belly. Then the rim gets small, and one of them keeps going until the opening is gone, and that last half minute is where the shoulder collapses, or the wall folds, or you close it and never get the hole in.

It is a poor moment to be reading. The form is soft, the wheel is turning, and you cannot stop and look something up without the pot deciding for you.

So this one is built to be on the table before you start. The route you are taking circled, the six setup decisions made while you can still change them, and a row on the log for the sphere you are about to lose. Because you are going to lose a few, and the lost ones are where the information is.

Look inside

Real pages, built for the last thirty seconds

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

  • Page 5 of the “Open and Closed Spheres” printable guide: two forms, one shape, shown with the sample watermark
    Two forms, one shapeOpen, closed, and what actually reads as round to the eye, so you know which pot you are making before the rim starts closing.
  • Page 8 of the “Open and Closed Spheres” printable guide: collaring, shown with the sample watermark
    CollaringThe move everything else depends on: making a circle smaller without wrecking it, broken into what your hands actually do.
  • Page 18 of the “Open and Closed Spheres” printable guide: fourteen ways it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    Fourteen ways it goes wrongEach one with what really caused it and what to do, and a box to tick for the ones that keep happening to you.
  • Page 21 of the “Open and Closed Spheres” printable guide: the sphere log, shown with the sample watermark
    The sphere logOne row for every sphere, survived or not. The form you were after, the clay you started with, and where it went.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

Why round forms, of all things, belong on paper

Everything that decides a sphere is settled before the rim closes, and then you have about half a minute and no free hands. Paper is the only thing you can check in that window.

  • It stays open while your hands are inside a pot

    Prop it against the splash pan and check the next move without drying off, because at that point in a closed form there is nowhere good to put your hands.

  • It remembers which of the fourteen keeps getting you

    Tick the rows in the diagnosis section that match your spheres. After a few sessions the pattern is on the page, and the cause is printed next to it.

  • It makes the failures worth something

    One row per sphere, wrecked ones included. The wrecked ones carry most of the information, and they are the ones you forget by the next session.

  • One card lives by the wheel for good

    Collaring, the open sphere, the closed sphere and the part that happens after the wheel, all on a single card you can pull out of the binder.

How the guide is built

Built the way a form with no second chance gets learned

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 you need on the tray, the mistakes that get made first, and what a sphere actually feels like when it is going right.

  • The complete lesson, redesigned for paper

    Six decisions before the wheel is switched on, collaring, the open sphere and the closed sphere step by step, and the section on what the trapped air is doing.

  • The half nobody films

    Off the wheel: the hole a sealed form has to have, the drying, and getting a round bottom to sit still while it does it.

  • Videos you can reach from a printed page

    Nine videos chosen for what they show rather than who made them, each with a note on why it is worth your time and a code that goes straight to it.

  • A quiz that teaches instead of grading

    Eight questions with an answer key that explains every answer, so a wrong one still teaches you something.

  • Plain words for the jargon

    A sixteen term glossary, from collaring and bellying out to the weld and the vent hole, written the way we would explain it at the wheel.

Why the University is free

The lesson is free. It always will be.

All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free “Open and Closed Spheres” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

A sphere is the first form where the pot can be going wrong in a place you cannot see or reach, and that is worth understanding before you spend a month guessing at it. So the lesson stays free, for anybody, anywhere.

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 06.04, the fourth guide in Advanced Throwing. The series is designed to live together in a binder, section by section, so the craft ends up on your shelf in the order you learn it.

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, or every printable we sell on one page.

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

What to learn once one of them comes out round

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 row for every sphere you attempt, a diagnosis section with boxes to tick, a one page card for beside the wheel, a printed quiz with an answer key, and a glossary.
Which one should I try first, open or closed?
The open sphere. It is the same throwing up to the last move, and it leaves you an opening to get a hand or a tool back into if the shoulder starts going. Close one once the open version is coming out round.
Does a closed form really have to have a hole?
Before it is fired, yes, every time, and the guide gives it its own section rather than a footnote. A sealed pot full of air and moisture in a kiln is the one failure here that can take other people’s work with it.
How much clay should I start with?
More than feels right for the size you want, because a sphere spends clay on its shoulder and its bottom that a cylinder does not. The setup section gives you the decisions to make before you center rather than a single number to copy.
My spheres keep coming out like two pots glued together. Why?
Almost always the belly and the shoulder were made as two separate moves instead of one curve. It is in the diagnosis section with the other thirteen, and it is the most common one we see.
Do I need a chuck to trim it?
You need something to hold a round bottom still, and the guide covers what that can be rather than assuming you own a particular tool. This is the part of the process that gets filmed the least and ruins the most finished spheres.
I am not at The Clay Hole. Is it still useful?
Yes. It is about the form and what your hands do, wherever you throw. Anything specific to our studio 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.

Nobody’s first sphere is round

Print it tonight. Circle the form you are going for, make the six decisions before you sit down, and write the row whether it survives or not.

Get the printable · $5.00

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.

You may not remove or obscure copyright notices, watermarks, attribution, or other ownership information, or sell, republish, or commercially exploit modified or derivative versions of the guide.

Purchasing the guide does not transfer ownership of its copyrighted text, photographs, illustrations, graphics, layouts, worksheets, or other original content. Those rights remain with The Clay Hole and their respective rights holders. Copyright law protects the expression contained in these guides, while ideas, methods, techniques, and processes may have different legal treatment.

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.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits any right or liability that applicable law does not allow us to exclude or limit.

Digital guides, immediate delivery, and refunds

These are digital products delivered electronically and made available for use immediately after purchase. Unlike a physical book, a downloaded digital file cannot meaningfully be returned to us once it has been delivered.

By completing your purchase and requesting immediate access to the guide, you consent to digital delivery beginning immediately. Where applicable law provides a cancellation or withdrawal period for digital content, you acknowledge that beginning the download, access, or delivery of the digital content may cause that cancellation or withdrawal right to end.

Once access to or delivery of the purchased digital guide has begun, the purchase is final and non-refundable except where a refund, replacement, cancellation, or other remedy is required by applicable law.

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