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The Clay Hole University · Electives

Sometimes Pottery Needs a PlanPrintable pottery guide

Know which kind of night it is before you center: what always needs a plan, what a plan looks like on one page, and how to play on the nights that need none.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: All levels
  • 21 printable pages
  • 4 video picks
  • 7-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 Sometimes Pottery Needs a Plan printable guide?

It is the plan or no plan lesson on paper: the eight kinds of piece that always need a plan, the five parts of a plan that fit on one notebook page, the six nights that need none, four habits for playing well, four videos with QR codes, and a log to plan each piece in. Built to be printed, kept by the wheel and written in.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Sometimes Pottery Needs a Plan, and Sometimes the Magic Is in Not Having One” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 21printable pages, US Letter
  • 7quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 4hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 10glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
For the pot you are about to start

Most frustration at the wheel is the wrong kind of night

Plan a night that wanted play and every pot is a failure against the plan. Play a night that wanted a plan and the lid does not fit, or the set of mugs turns into four mugs that do not match.

So the skill is not planning, and it is not playing. It is knowing which of the two the piece in front of you needs, and often the answer is both: the rim of a lidded jar is a plan, the belly of the same jar is play.

This guide gives you the two lists, shows what a plan looks like when it fits on one notebook page, and leaves you a log to write each plan in before you throw.

Look inside

Real pages, for a notebook beside the wheel

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

  • Page 3 of the “Sometimes Pottery Needs a Plan” printable guide: before you begin, shown with the sample watermark
    Before you beginSix boxes on one page: what you will learn, what to have on the bench, what is worth knowing, the common pitfalls, what success looks like and how to practice. Read it before you sit down.
  • Page 9 of the “Sometimes Pottery Needs a Plan” printable guide: the middle path, shown with the sample watermark
    The middle pathA set of mugs, a lidded jar, a commission and a planter, each split into the parts that are planned and the parts that are played.
  • Page 10 of the “Sometimes Pottery Needs a Plan” printable guide: videos with codes, shown with the sample watermark
    Videos with codesFour videos, each with its own QR code. Scan the one you want and it opens on your phone, so the wheel stays clean.
  • Page 14 of the “Sometimes Pottery Needs a Plan” printable guide: one page for every piece you plan, shown with the sample watermark
    One page for every piece you planA log to write in before you throw: fired size, wet size, clay weight, glaze tile, and what happened after the kiln.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Why this one belongs on paper

A plan is only a plan if it is written down

The whole idea of this lesson is a notebook page you can prop against the splash pan. Paper is the right place for it.

  • Write it before you throw

    The log has a row for every piece: sizes, clay weight and glaze tile. Filling it in is the plan, and it takes about as long as centering.

  • Change the number, not the pot

    When the first pot in a set is off, the page is where you correct the number so the rest of the set is made to the corrected page.

  • The decision on one sheet

    Which kind of night it is, the five parts of a plan and the four habits for a play night fit on a single reference page you can pin up.

  • A record of the nights you played

    A reject kept for a week is only useful if you remember why. The log has room for what happened, and for the pot you kept looking at.

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.

  • The shrinkage sum, corrected

    The lesson said to throw twelve percent bigger for a clay that shrinks twelve percent. The guide divides the fired size by 0.88, about fourteen percent, the way the proportions lesson does.

  • Video notes that match the videos

    Each note was rewritten from the video’s own description and chapters, so a card says what the video covers and nothing more.

  • Counts that agree

    The sketch is three lines throughout, the Nutshell lists all five parts of a plan, and every number in the guide matches what it counts.

  • Written for any studio

    Clay Hole facts are named as ours and dated, so a reader working somewhere else knows which parts are a Clay Hole fact and which are a rule of the craft.

  • Tools you write in

    A one page reference for the bench and a plan log to write in, with a prompt to sketch each profile on the back of the page.

  • A quiz that explains itself

    An answer key that gives the reason behind every answer rather than only the letter, and codes that keep working because every link is a short Clay Hole address.

Why the University is free

The lesson is free. It always will be.

All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free “Sometimes Pottery Needs a Plan, and Sometimes the Magic Is in Not Having One” lesson, and that lesson is not going anywhere.

Some nights you bring a plan and some nights you bring a bag of clay and nothing else. Both are real pottery.

Nobody should have to pay to be told which one tonight is, so the lesson stays free.

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.

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Sits next to

Three lessons that pick up where this one 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, a one page reference for the bench, a plan log to write in, a glossary and a quiz with an answer key that explains every answer.
Do I have to be able to draw?
No. A plan sketch is the profile of the pot with three widths: rim, belly and foot. Nobody else sees it, and potters who draw badly draw the same three lines and the pots come out right.
Is it all about planning?
No, and that is the point. Half of it is about the nights that need no plan at all, and four habits that keep a night of play honest, so you come away with something other than a pile of pots.
Is this too early for me?
It is open to every level. Nothing in it needs a new hand skill; it is a way of deciding, and it works the same on a first pinch pot and a set of six mugs.
Do I need a wheel?
No. The ideas apply to wheel work, hand building and slabs alike. A lid has to fit its jar and a set has to match whichever way you make it.
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. It is designed to stay readable in grayscale, and the workbook pages are mostly ruled lines and text, so a plain black and white printer does them justice.
Can I print just part of it?
Yes, and most people do. The one page reference and the plan log are the two worth having by the wheel. They are numbered pages like any other, so you can print those and leave the rest on a screen.
Can I read it on a screen instead?
Yes. It is an ordinary PDF and it reads fine on a tablet or a phone. The log is the page that wants paper, because you write on it.
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 and beside the wheel the same evening.
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.

Decide which night it is, then go and have it

Ask whether any part of the piece has to fit, match or meet something that already exists. If it does, plan that part on one page before you open the bag. If nothing does, leave the plan at home and follow the clay. Most nights are a bit of both, and now you will know which bit is which.

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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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