Hello we are sorry for any inconvenience and will give full refunds to anyone booked on already but we are delaying this workshop until later in the year the new dates are shown below.
Introduction to Reduction Firing
with Katrina Pechal
14th - 16th February 2025
This is a 2 and a half day workshop. We will be looking at the difference in effects achieved between an oxidation atmosphere in an electric kiln and reduction atmosphere in a gas kiln
Using gas, wood, oil or coal as a fuel for a kiln firing, reduces the oxygen in the kiln
producing a reduction atmosphere - Lunch and refreshments are included on day 1 and 2
Day 1 - 10-4pm - mix ash glazes, glaze work, pack the kiln -
Day 2 - 10-4pm Fire the gas kiln - We will be showing a wood firing film and talking about kilns, kiln designs, kiln atmospheres and their effects
Day 3 - Half day -1pm-3.30pm - unpack the kiln and evaluate results
Students will need:
At least 8 medium sized disc fired pieces made with stoneware clay
An apron, dust mask, small towel, notebook and pen
Please let me know if you have any dietary requirements thanks
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Glaze Development Workshop
with Linda Bloomfield
18th and 19th January 2025
Linda, with a PhD in Chemistry is a potter, author and teacher. She makes porcelain tableware and sells all over the world. She is also a well know and highly regarded author of numerous glaze chemistry and development books including: Science for potters, Colour in glazes and Special effects glazes. She has been teaching here at Forest Row School of Ceramics for over 7 years now coming twice a year. Working with our full time students as well as to run this 2 day workshop.
The workshop is designed to introduce the chemistry behind glaze materials and how they react and respond with each other in the kiln. With the specific knowledge needed for potters to be able to and have the confidence to experiment, adjust and develop their own glazes.
Day 1 - 10 - 4pm your will be discussing your chosen base glaze recipes, mixing test blinds, and preparing test tiles for firing. They will get fired over night.
Lunch and refreshments are included
Day 2 - Linda will be giving a talk about all glaze materials , their effects, chemistry, usability, sustainability and origins. Their will then be a question and answer session followed by assessing together individual students glaze test results., fresh from the kiln.
Lunch and refreshments included.
Please bring with you:
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At least 25 small, biscuit fired, tiles approximately 6/4cm, for glaze tests. Made with the clay you work with, if they are stoneware, they will be fired during the course so that the results can be assessed and discussed with Linda.
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Any earthenware glaze tests will have to be taken home to fire yourselves. Linda would then discuss your results over Zoom later
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20 small hummus size lidded containers
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A small sieve 80 – 100 mesh
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A set of scales measuring down to 1 gram
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A dust mask
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Apron
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Note book and pen
If you aren’t able to bring the above please let me know.
Throwing with Coils
with Katrina Pechal
31st Jan 1st & 2nd February 2025
This 3 day workshop is designed to introduce combining throwing and a traditional coiling technique in order to produce large scale pots inspired by traditional African coil pots.
With the intention to teach technique not give you a finished fired piece to take home,
pieces made will not be fired here, but you are welcome to take them away with you. There is no extra charge for materials used.
We will be starting with throwing are bases with as much clay as we can handle. We will then continue building the form using coils and time allowing decorate them to finish.
Experience throwing to an intermediate level is required. This course is not suitable for beginners.
Day 1 10-4pm There will be a film shown about traditional African coiling techniques and we will discuss form, function and decoration with our own pots in mind. Design our pieces on paper just as a starting point, remembering that in the making and learning, ideas and forms can change out of choice or necessity.
I will then demonstrate the throwing part before students make their own with my support and help. We will be working on 2 pieces at one time allowing work to dry and rest between working sessions. Bases will be allowed to dry over night.
Includes lunch and refreshments
Day 2 10-4pm - I will demonstrate adding coils to our forms - students try themselves with my help and support
Includes lunch and refreshments
Day 3 10-4pm - Finishing and decorating our pieces
Includes lunch and refreshments
Please bring with you:
Sketchbook and pencil/pen
Apron
Small towel
Your own tools if you have them although we will provide tools
A heat gun or hair dryer
Boxes and packaging if you want to take your pieces home
Tea Pot Throwing
with Patia Davis
21st 22nd & 23rd February 2025
Patia Davis is a wonderful potter working with porcelain, throwing domestic pots. Her teapots are often made in sections, altered and decorated with such an expressive, soft, unique approach She will be sharing her methods of making and decorating her teapots. Although porcelain is her favoured material. We will be working in this workshop with White Stoneware Clay Making teapots.
With the intention to teach technique not give you a finished fired piece to take home. Pieces made will not be fired here, but you are welcome to take them away with you. There is no extra charge for materials used.
Experience throwing to an intermediate level is required. This course is not suitable for beginners.
Day 1 10-4pm - Patia will talk about and show you her teapots / demonstrate making and
altering the main forms and lids. Student then make their own with her support and help. Lunch and refreshments are included
Day 2 10-4pm - making spouts and starting at assemble teapots
Lunch and refreshments are included
Day 3 10-4pm continue finishing teapots making handles, trimming and, time allowing,
decorating teapots Lunch and refreshments are included
Please bring with you:
Sketchbook and pen
Apron
Small towel
Any special tools you like to work with
Boxes and packaging if you want to take your pieces home
Throwing Jugs
with Russell Kingston
8th & 9th March 2025
Russell Kingston makes Devonshire Slipware and runs Lymouth Pottery with his wife Jessica Turrell. Which is a thriving ceramic gallery and studio, producing a range of domestic, earthenware, wet slip decorated, gas fired, pots. Russell is a production potter throwing huge numbers of pots a day, giving him such a intuitive instinctive method of making and decorating. Enthusing freshness and expression into every piece. He is a lover of making jugs and we are excited to have him here to share he skills and personal making methods with us.
With the intention to teach technique not give you a finished fired piece to take home. Pieces made will not be fired here, but you are welcome to take them away with you. There is no extra charge for materials used.
Experience throwing to an intermediate level is required. This course is not suitable for beginners.
Day 1 10-4pm - Russell will be talking about and showing you his jugs. He will then be demonstrating throwing followed by supporting you with your own throwing.
Lunch and refreshments are included
Day 2 10-4pm - Russell will be demonstrating handle making and decorating jugs - plus supporting you with your own making, decorating and finishing your jugs.
Lunch and refreshments are included
Please bring with you:
Sketchbook and pen
Apron
Small towel
Any special tools you like to work with
Boxes and packaging if you want to take your pieces home
Making inlayed Vessels
with Imogen-Taylor Noble
29th & 30th March 2025
Imogen trained at Camberwell School of Art and is an
accomplished ceramicist and teacher, teaching ceramics for over 25 years in
diverse settings including Adult Education, Further
and Higher Education and Community Arts spaces. Imogen's work is process and material led . She is interested in the extremes of the materials she works as well as the fire. Her use of inlayed, often wild clay shapes into differing clay slabs, which she forms her pieces from. Create opportunities to show the natural varying clay reactions colours and textures to heat.
In this workshop Imogen will be introducing you to her personal inlaying and making techniques. You will be designing, hand building and decorating a number of vessel forms.
With the intention to teach technique not giving you a finished fired piece to take home. Pieces made will not be fired here, but you are welcome to take them away with you. There is no extra charge for materials used.
Experience - some experience with working with clay would be preferable but not essential.
Day 1 10-4pm - Working with contrasting clays we will explore the many ways that we can successfully inlay clay.
We will work with vessel forms using clays in a variety of states. The course will offer opportunities to experiment with different making techniques suitable for inlaid clay, and to discover how the inlaid clay can inform or alter the finished form.
We will use stoneware clays which we can alter to provide enhanced contrast.
Lunch and refreshments are included
Day 2 10-4pm - we will continue working on forms started on day 1
Lunch and refreshments are included
Please bring with you:
Sketchbook and pen
Apron
Small towel
Any special tools you like to work with
Boxes and packaging if you want to take your pieces home
Kiln Biulding and Firing
with Imogen-Taylor Noble
25th 26th & 27th April 2025
Participants will work together to assemble a fast fire kiln completing the build in a day. We will pack the kiln with pots which have been previously bisc fired, and course members will be invited to bring fired stoneware pots with them. We will provide basic glazes which are suitable for wood firing and which can be applied on the day during breaks from the building.
On the second day of the course we will fire the new kiln to high stoneware temperatures with wood which is available from the estate. Participants will work in teams taking turns to stoke the kiln which will fire for between 12 and16 hours.
On the third day we will unpack the kiln and review the firing.
Imogen built her first kiln on leaving art college. This was a ‘top hat’ gas kiln in which she fired her large saggar fired pieces.
She subsequently built a small scale Raku kiln for students at The City Lit in London where she taught for 8 years.
She has built kilns from paper with school students for smoke firings using local clays as decorative slips.
Her recent kiln builds are a 5 metre long wood fired Train kiln, which fires in 16 hours and a fast fire Philosopher’s kiln which fires in 8 hours to cone 12.
Imogen’s students in Devon are building 2 small fast fire kilns and she contributes regularly to planning and construction of these manageable kilns.
Times 10-4pm
Lunch and refreshments are included
Please bring with you:
8 bisc fired stoneware medium sized pieces
Sketchbook and pen
Apron
Small towel
Boxes and packaging if you want to take your pieces home
Cost:
2 days - £315
3 days - £475.50
Lunch and refreshments included
There is an additional small charge for firing costs on finished pieces.
Time:
10am - 4.30pm
Requirements:
- Tools are provided but please feel free to bring your own tools if you prefer
- A notebook, apron and small towel
​- Students might need experience - Please confirm with Katrina
or to bring Bisc fired pots to glaze
- Pre course research might also be requested nearer the time
- Student are welcome to take pieces home to fire themselves at no extra cost
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