You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 06.05

The Clay Hole University · Advanced Throwing

Throwing Enclosed FormsPrintable pottery guide

A pot with no opening, a pocket of air doing structural work, and the fifteen steps that get you there without folding it.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Advanced
  • 28 printable pages
  • 5 video picks
  • 7-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 Throwing Enclosed Forms printable guide?

It is a printable workbook edition of The Clay Hole University’s free “Throwing Enclosed Forms” lesson. It covers the three ways to seal a pot, six decisions that are much cheaper to make before you center, the fifteen steps in the order they happen, what a sealed pot lets you do that an open one never will, and the hole every enclosed form needs before it is fired. On paper it adds a row for every pot you close, 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 “Throwing Enclosed Forms” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 28printable pages, US Letter
  • 15step method, start to finish
  • 7quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 5hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 16glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
Why a printable, for this one

The air inside is holding the pot up, and you cannot see it

Once a form is closed, the pocket of air in it is doing structural work. That is the whole trick, and it is also why this is the first pot where the thing keeping your work alive is completely invisible to you.

You cannot look inside. You cannot get a hand in. You cannot check a wall thickness the way you have checked every wall until now. All you have is what you decided before you closed it.

So this guide is built to be open while you make those decisions, not afterwards. Six of them before you center, fifteen steps in order, and a row on the log for how many collaring passes it actually took, because that number is the one you will want next time.

Look inside

Real pages, for a pot you cannot see inside

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

  • Page 5 of the “Throwing Enclosed Forms” printable guide: what you are making, shown with the sample watermark
    What you are makingA pot with no opening, and what the pocket of air is actually doing for the wall while you work.
  • Page 8 of the “Throwing Enclosed Forms” printable guide: six decisions before you center, shown with the sample watermark
    Six decisions before you centerEvery one of them much cheaper to make now than to discover later, laid out where you can tick them off.
  • Page 16 of the “Throwing Enclosed Forms” printable guide: the closed form log, shown with the sample watermark
    The closed form logOne row per pot you close: the clay you started with, how many collaring passes it took, and whether the hole went in.
  • Page 17 of the “Throwing Enclosed Forms” printable guide: when it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    When it goes wrongThe ways an enclosed form fails, what really caused each one, and a box for the ones that keep happening to you.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

Why a sealed pot, of all things, belongs on paper

Everything that decides an enclosed form is settled before you close it, and after that you are working blind. Paper is where those decisions can sit in front of you.

  • It stays open while your hands are committed

    Prop it against the splash pan and read the next step without stopping, because in the middle of closing a form there is no good moment to stop.

  • It holds the decisions you cannot revisit

    The six things to settle before you center are on one page with boxes. Once the pot is closed, none of them can be changed.

  • It keeps the number you will want next time

    How many collaring passes it took is the single most useful thing about the pot you just made, and it is gone from your memory by the next session unless you write it down.

  • One card lives by the wheel for good

    The six decisions, the fifteen steps, the hole and the failures, all on a single page you can pull out of the binder.

How the guide is built

Built for a pot you have to get right before you close it

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 good closure actually feels like under the rib.

  • The complete lesson, redesigned for paper

    Three ways to seal a pot, the six decisions, and all fifteen steps in the order they actually happen rather than the order they are usually taught.

  • The hole, with a section of its own

    A sealed pot needs a hole before it is fired, every time. It is the one failure here that can take other people’s work with it, so it does not get a footnote.

  • What a sealed pot lets you do

    Paddling, altering and the things you could never do to an open pot, which is the reason to close one in the first place.

  • Videos you can reach from a printed page

    Five videos, five potters, none of them 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

    A sixteen term glossary, from closure and trapped air to paddling and the pinhole, 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 “Throwing Enclosed Forms” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

Closing a pot is the first time in throwing that the thing holding your work up is something you cannot see. Understanding that early saves people months of guessing, 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 06.05, the fifth 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

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

What to learn once you can close one

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 pot you close, a one page card for beside the wheel, a printed quiz with an answer key, and a glossary.
Does it really need a hole before firing?
Yes, every time, and this guide gives it a section rather than a footnote. A sealed pot full of air and moisture going into a kiln is the failure here that can damage other people’s work as well as your own.
Which of the three ways to seal one should I start with?
The guide compares all three and says which it would start you on, and why. The short version is that the easiest one to close is not the easiest one to get a good shape out of.
How do I know the wall is thick enough if I cannot reach inside?
You do not, after it is closed. That is the point, and it is why six of the decisions in this guide happen before you center rather than while you throw.
How do you trim something with no opening?
It gets its own section, because holding a form with no rim and no opening still is genuinely awkward and it is where a lot of finished pots get ruined.
Is this too advanced for me?
It assumes you can throw a cylinder you would keep and collar a rim without tearing it. If you are still fighting for that, learn it first and this will be much less frustrating.
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.

Your first one will fold. Make it anyway.

Print it tonight. Make the six decisions before you center, work the fifteen steps in order, and write down how many passes it took.

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