We’ve just released a new mug hand-building workshop for those of you looking to try pottery out for the first time or just to enjoy a morning or afternoon creative class with a friend. In the class you’ll learn to hand-build your own pottery mug and then finish it off painting it with coloured slips (a liquid clay). Think patterns from the tessellating pop illustrations of Keith Haring to the psychedelic optical dots of Yayoi Kusama, create your own unique design.
Forget pottery painting Manchester, you’ll create your brew vessel from scratch, from messy mud to neatly constructed mug. Manipulate the clay into a slab, create and attach a handle, then finish it off by painting it. You’ll be welcomed into our friendly class and shown the processes of making pottery by one of our expert tutors. We’ve been running classes for over 25 years, so you know you’re in good hands, with our skills having passed down generations from the top potters in the country.
Your mugs will be fired twice, clear glazed and after 3-6 weeks they’ll be ready to pick up. So if you’re looking for an activity to do with a date, or wanting to get into pottery after seeing it on the Great Pottery Throw down, this hand-build a mug workshop is a really good way to start.
Paint-a-pot or pottery painting is a business that operates as a café where you can paint ready made pots. What you say? You don’t make your own pots and then paint them? That’s right, you paint ready made manufactured pots.
We’re not a pottery painting studio, but we do get a lot of calls about pottery painting. We’re a pottery making studio, where you’ll make the entirety of your pot from a lump of clay, manipulating it by hand and tool to create your own masterpieces. You may at this point paint them with slips, a liquid clay, and/or you’ll then glaze (or paint) your pots when they’re fired too. You can try our hand-build a mug pottery class where you’ll paint them too.
Technically potter’s don’t put paint on their pots? Paint is made from plastics, which are far less durable than ceramics, and what pottery makers actually use to colour and finish their pots is glaze, slip, underglaze and oxides. These are made from natural materials, usually different types of rocks and metals. Sometimes potter’s will use a brush to apply these glazes, slips and oxides, and this may be where the term pottery painting comes from, but brushing is just one method of application. You can pour, dip, and spatter your way along with many other techniques.
The ready made pots in a paint-your-own-pot café have already been biscuit fired, so you can apply your glaze to them with a brush. Nothing to do with biscuits, but pottery goes through the process of 2 firings. The first firing is at a low temperature and is called the biscuit firing. It’s called this because the pottery is weak at this temperature and can break like a biscuit. Once a glaze is applied it goes through a second firing to melt the glaze and make the pottery harder.
Pottery painting is a good way to drop in and keep the kids occupied for a bit. However, it hardly compares to the satisfaction and enjoyment of making pottery from mud, with your bare hands. It’s fun manipulating clay into objects you can use and you can also ‘paint’ the pots that you make too. But what is the ‘paint’ that we use?
Pottery Paint
There isn’t such a think as pottery paint, what potteries use is glaze and slip. So what is glaze and slip?
What is Glaze?
In simple terms glaze is a glassy coating made to fit onto the outer layer of a ceramic pot. It makes it impervious to water, food safe and easy to clean. It is just as durable as ceramic and can enhance the strength of a pot helping them to last thousands of years. It can be applied with a brush, perhaps where the term pottery painting comes from, but it can also be poured, dipped or sprayed on.
What is Slip?
Slip is a liquid clay that can be applied to clay pots before they have been fired. It’s used in a decorative fashion to add colour and patterns. It can also be applied with a brush, but sponging, dipping, pouring and slip ‘trailing’ are also common methods. England has a tradition of slipware pottery, and you can see such beautiful examples made by modern potters such as Fitch & McAndrew.
What is Underglaze?
Underglazes are manufactured and pigmented colours within an independent medium that’s not quite slip nor glaze. Underglazes can come in vivid colours, but can also be quite expensive.
What are Oxides?
Metallic oxides are metals in their raw forms, such as iron oxide, copper carbonate, cobalt carbonate, chrome oxide, and manganese dioxide among others. These are the materials (or chemicals) that colour the world.
Pottery painting or Paint Your Own Pot (PYOP) studios usually use a combination of commercially manufactured glaze or underglazes applied to bisqueware (low fired pottery) to paint pottery.
Can you paint pots with paints?
Paints are various concoctions of plastics and chemicals, whereas pottery and ceramics are long-lasting and durable materials that can last thousands and thousands of years. The oldest things we have in the world are pots made by the hands of our ancestors. These can be carbon dated back 24,000-30,000 years old. You can indeed paint pots with paints, there’s nothing stopping you, but you’re devaluing the material, so make sure not to tell me or any other potters that’s what you’re doing, and be careful not to put them in the dishwasher as it’ll melt the paint.
Pottery Painting vs Pottery Making
Pottery painting is like to pottery making what a colouring-in book is to illustration, a trailer is to a movie, or what a ready meal is to a chef. If you’ve had a go at pottery painting in Manchester, then try a pottery course, to get your hands stuck into clay and create your own masterpieces from scratch. The classes are popular and as such you won’t be able to drop in, you’ll need to book a pottery class in advance. Try our make and paint your own pottery mug workshop or one of our other taster pottery classes in Manchester where you can also learn to throw on the wheel, all of which are perfect for someone looking to have a go for the first time.
Hands deep in wet clay, with mud spattered mess, there’s no doubt that pottery is a mucky activity. Even though aprons are provided, you’ll be getting grubby, so you’ll want to dress for the mess for your first pottery class.
What should you wear to a pottery class?
Dress for the mess: Wear clothes you don’t mind getting dirty (aprons provided).
No whites, they’re easier to stain with red clay, but easy to wash out of other colours.
Skirts can be a tricky on the wheel, so opt for trousers/shorts/leggings.
Remove jewellery and watches on your hands or wrists. Leave them in your bag or pockets so you don’t forget them.
Closed toe shoes that are easy to wipe are best.
Layer up in the winter, it’s a workshop not a restaurant, while the kilns often keep it warm, on the coldest days, it’s those layers that will keep you warm.
Short nails are recommended. Longer nails will dig into the clay while throwing on the wheel, which, while still possible to throw a good pot, it will give a less comfortable experience.
If you have long hair, you’ll want to tie it up for working on the wheel.
Last but not least, wear a smile, as you’ll enjoy yourself even more coming in with some positive energy.
James Donegan, took a beginner pottery course with us here in Manchester. An architect for Tim Groom Architects at the time, and now a fully qualified architect, with a RIBA and Mecanoo award to his name, and running the creative studio Dematerial.
After an exhibition at Manchester Craft and Design Centre creating an impressive structure inspired by mathematical designs in nature, James took a mould making and slip casting course with us. Following this he designed and 3D printed some tiles for a design project of Marlborough School in Macclesfield.
Involving the teachers and students “to design a space that is flexible, exciting and theirs.” As architects they unfortunately “had to reject suggestions that mashed potato, Lego and bubbles were suitable materials to build the school.” James made slip casting moulds for the tiles and had sample tiles produced at 7 Limes Pottery, using glaze designed by Sam Andrew. Their proposal won the Manchester Society of Architects award for un-built community project that year!
At 7 Limes Pottery we’ve actually had a number of team building workshops with architect groups.A Architects we find are interested in materials, especially ceramics. So pottery is a great team building activity for architects. Do get in touch to talk to us about arranging a team building workshop or for helping to design and make ceramic samples for a specific architecture project.
