You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 07.14

The Clay Hole University · Hand Building

Sculpting for BeginnersPrintable pottery guide

A pot has a wall. A sculpture has a middle, and a middle is what explodes. Solid or hollow, how thick, and when it has to be hollowed out are the three questions, and this answers them before you pick up a lump.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Beginner
  • 24 printable pages
  • 5 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 Sculpting for Beginners printable guide?

It is a printable workbook edition of The Clay Hole University’s free “A Beginner’s Guide to Sculpting” lesson. Sculpture is where a beginner meets the kiln for the first time as an enemy, because everything else you have made had a wall and this has a middle. The guide takes it in order, with a tick list at every step: deciding solid or hollow before the first lump is picked up, seeing the thing you want to make as spheres, cylinders and slabs, building in stages with paper props so it does not sag, cutting it open at leather hard and scooping it to an even wall, and the weeks of drying that sculpture actually needs. On paper it adds a log of eight pieces and how each one dried, the whole technique on one page, a printed quiz with a full answer key, and a glossary.

Prefer to read it online first? The “A Beginner’s Guide to Sculpting” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 24printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 5hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 18glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
Why a printable, for this one

Sculpture is a project you come back to, over weeks

Almost everything else in pottery is finished in one sitting. A sculpture is not. It gets built in stages over several visits, it sits in a bag between them, and then it dries for longer than anybody believes, which is the part that decides whether it survives the kiln at all.

That is a strange shape for a web page. You are not going to have a lesson open on a screen across three weeks and a drying shelf. You are going to want the rule, the number and the tick list in front of you each time you come back to it, and a line to write on when you finally put it on the drop-off table.

So the guide is built around the decisions rather than around the idea. The one inch line and what has to happen above it. Walls of three eighths to three quarters of an inch, and why even thickness matters more than the number. What can go inside clay and what tears it open. And what dry actually means, which is a thing you test with your cheek, not with a calendar.

Look inside

Real pages, for a table, a bag and a drying shelf

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

  • Page 5 of the “Sculpting for Beginners” printable guide: the five minute version, shown with the sample watermark
    The five minute versionThe whole technique in six moves up front, so you can start tonight and read the detail as you go.
  • Page 8 of the “Sculpting for Beginners” printable guide: hollow it at leather hard, shown with the sample watermark
    Hollow it at leather hardWire it open where the seam will hide, scoop to an even wall, close it, and put a pinhole in it.
  • Page 12 of the “Sculpting for Beginners” printable guide: six ways it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    Six ways it goes wrongEach one with what actually caused it, what to do next time, and what to do with the piece in front of you.
  • Page 10 of the “Sculpting for Beginners” printable guide: eight pieces, and how each one dried, shown with the sample watermark
    Eight pieces, and how each one driedOne line per piece: what it was, how it was built, the thickest part, and whether it came out whole.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

You will be coming back to this piece for three weeks

A sculpture is built over several visits and then dried for weeks, and the thing that decides the outcome is a number you have to remember every single time.

  • A tick list at every step

    Put the page down, do the thing, pick it back up, with clay on both hands. Five steps, five lists, and they are the same list every visit.

  • The numbers, in one place

    One inch. Three eighths to three quarters. Ten to fourteen percent. One pinhole. A week, then two. All on a single page you can leave on the table.

  • Six failures, with their real causes

    Almost every one of them was decided days before it happened. Knowing which is which is the difference between a mistake and a habit.

  • Eight pieces, logged

    Drying is the part nobody believes until they have measured their own shelf. A line per piece turns weeks of guessing into something you know.

How the guide is built

Built for a table, a bag and a drying shelf

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 a finished piece looks like before it goes anywhere near a kiln.

  • The whole technique in six moves, up front

    Before any of the detail, so you can start tonight and read the rest across the visits that follow.

  • Four steps in full, with tick lists

    Solid or hollow, building and joining, hollowing, then drying and firing, as things to work through rather than paragraphs to re-read.

  • The two ways in, side by side

    Built hollow from the start, or built solid and dug out at leather hard, with what each one is right for and what each one costs you.

  • Videos you can reach from a printed page

    Five videos from sculptors with nothing to do with us, each with a note on why it is worth your time and a code that goes straight to it.

  • Plain words for the jargon

    An eighteen 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 “A Beginner’s Guide to Sculpting” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

Your first sculpture will probably be a little heavy, and one ear will come off in the kiln because it was softer than the head. That is normal. Nobody should have to pay to find out why it happened.

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 07.14, 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 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 log of eight pieces and how each one dried, the whole technique on one page, a printed quiz with a full answer key, and a glossary.
Do I need any equipment?
A wire, a loop tool, a needle, a wooden tool, a rib, some newspaper and a bag. That is the whole list, and the newspaper does the job most people think wire does.
How thick can a sculpture be?
An inch is the line. Thinner than an inch everywhere can be solid. Thicker anywhere has to be hollow, either built that way or dug out at leather hard, and the guide covers both.
Why did my piece explode in the kiln?
Water, not air. Trapped air is the famous suspect and it is mostly innocent. A thick piece that felt dry on the outside was still damp in the middle, and the guide is built around stopping that.
Can I leave a wire armature inside?
Not one that stays in. Clay shrinks and wire does not, so the clay tears itself open around it. Newspaper, paper towel and cardboard cores are fine because they burn out in the bisque.
How do I know when it is actually dry?
Room temperature to the cheek everywhere, including inside any openings. Anywhere that still feels cool is still wet there, whatever the calendar says.
Do I need to be able to draw or model?
No. The guide’s whole first step is seeing the thing you want to make as spheres, cylinders and slabs, which is what sculptors do and what beginners usually skip.
I am not at The Clay Hole. Is it still useful?
Yes, nearly all of it. It needs a table and two hands. The one page about our own 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.
Can I print just part of it?
Yes, and people do. The one page technique card and the eight piece log are the two most worth having on their own.
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 join two pinch pots

Two pinch pots joined rim to rim make a hollow sphere, and a hollow sphere is the body of half the creatures ever made in clay. Score both faces, blend a coil round the seam, put a pinhole under its tail, and give it far longer to dry than feels necessary.

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