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The Clay Hole University · Pottery Foundations

Three Tries, One Change: Answer Your Own Pottery QuestionsPrintable pottery guide

How to answer your own pottery questions, on paper: one change at a time, what the third try is for, three worked examples and a recording sheet to fill in.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: All levels
  • 25 printable pages
  • 4 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 Three Tries, One Change: Answer Your Own Pottery Questions printable guide?

It is the free “Three Tries, One Change: Answer Your Own Pottery Questions” lesson rebuilt for paper: why clay needs a fair test, the method in eight steps, what the third try is for, what has to stay the same and when a small test is enough, with worked examples for a handle, a seam and a glaze and a full page recording sheet printed inside.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Three Tries, One Change: Answer Your Own Pottery Questions” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 25printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 4hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 16glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
For anyone with a question about their own pots

Your usual way. One change. Then the clay decides.

Whether a thinner handle would feel better, whether two coats would stop a glaze running, whether a beveled seam holds where a butted one cracks: most of the questions a potter carries around can be answered by the potter, in clay, in about three tries.

This guide is how to set those tries up so the answer is real. Make it your usual way, make it again with one thing changed and everything else held the same, judge the two side by side at the stage where the answer actually lives, then repeat the winner or adjust once more. Three worked examples run the method all the way through, and most of the tests are tiles and small pieces, not whole pots.

Paper suits it because a test takes weeks. Between the first try and the glaze firing nobody remembers which mug had which handle, and the recording sheet is where the question, the guess and every result wait for you.

Look inside

Real pages, ready for the table

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

  • Page 3 of the “Three Tries, One Change: Answer Your Own Pottery Questions” printable guide: before you begin, shown with the sample watermark
    Before you beginOne page before the first try: what you will learn, what you will need, what is worth knowing, the common pitfalls and what success looks like.
  • Page 5 of the “Three Tries, One Change: Answer Your Own Pottery Questions” printable guide: why clay needs a fair test, shown with the sample watermark
    Why clay needs a fair testSix reasons two pots made “the same way” come out different, from shrinkage to the kiln, and why each one shapes the method.
  • Page 14 of the “Three Tries, One Change: Answer Your Own Pottery Questions” printable guide: when a test goes quiet, shown with the sample watermark
    When a test goes quietSix ways a fair test turns into an unfair one, from two changes at once to judging at the wrong stage, each with a one line fix.
  • Page 18 of the “Three Tries, One Change: Answer Your Own Pottery Questions” printable guide: the recording sheet, shown with the sample watermark
    The recording sheetA full page for one test: the question, how you will judge it, what stays the same, your guess, a row for each try and the answer.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Why this one belongs on paper

A test that outlasts your memory

A test runs through drying and two firings. Paper is what still knows the answer at the end.

  • A sheet for every test

    One full page per question, with a row for each of the three tries, made to be printed as often as you have questions.

  • Three examples, worked through

    A thinner handle, a beveled seam and two coats of glaze, each set up, judged and followed by its third try.

  • The rules on one page

    The method, the four outcomes of try two, what “the same” means and the six ways a test goes quiet, on a reference to keep beside you.

  • It does not mind clay

    A page can sit beside two wet mugs and a needle tool, and it never locks its screen while your hands are full.

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.

  • Built on our own lessons

    The worked examples follow the lessons that teach each move in depth, from pulling handles and joining slabs to making and logging test tiles, so the guide says what those pages say.

  • The rules of a fair test

    Changing one thing at a time, repeating a result before trusting it and deciding how to judge before looking all come from how a fair test is taught, explained here in pottery terms.

  • Studio rules checked

    Where the guide touches the kiln, drying and glazing, it was read against our studio’s own rules, down to the kiln cookie under every glazed try.

  • Written for a reader in any studio

    The lines about our own studio are named as ours, so the method works for a potter testing anywhere.

  • Video notes that claim no more than the videos

    Each video note was written from the video’s own title, chapters and description, so it promises only what the video says it covers.

  • Codes that keep working

    Every link is a short Clay Hole address. If a page moves, we point the address at its new home 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 “Three Tries, One Change: Answer Your Own Pottery Questions” lesson, and that lesson is not going anywhere.

You can answer most of them yourself.

Practicing a skill makes you more consistent. This is how you decide what to try when you have a question, and how you get confident figuring things out for yourself.

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

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Sits next to

Three lessons that pick up where the testing 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, the method and the worked examples laid out to use at the table, a full page recording sheet, a one page reference, a glossary and a quiz with an answer key that explains every answer.
Is it only for experienced potters?
No. You need a way of making the thing that you already know, because that is your first try. A beginner might test a first handle; somebody years in might test a lid that fits on the first try. The method is the same at every level.
Do I need to be a member of The Clay Hole to use it?
No. The method works in any studio, or at home. The few lines about our own studio, like who loads the kilns, are named as ours.
Do I need a wheel?
No. The seam and glaze examples happen at a table, and the handle example works on thrown or hand built mugs alike. Most tests are tiles and small pieces.
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. The text, the tables and the recording sheet read clearly in grey. Color is used for headings, small labels and the step numbers.
Can I print just part of it?
Yes, and most people do. The recording sheet and the one page reference are the pages worth keeping at the table, and you can print the recording sheet once for every test you run. They are numbered pages like any other, so you can print those and keep the rest on a screen.
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 before your next session.
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.

Write the question down. Make try one on purpose.

The method, three worked examples and a recording sheet that keeps every question and every answer. The guide keeps the test in front of you while the clay takes its time.

Get the guide · $5.00

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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.

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