Spotlight on Hand Built Pottery

No experience is needed and no pottery wheel is required — coil building is one of the very first techniques potters learn and uses only your hands and a turntable if you have one. Freya starts with a simple pinch bowl exercise to warm up your hands and build confidence, then guides you step by step through the coil vase. She emphasises that mistakes are part of the process and that anyone can succeed with clay.

You don't need a kiln at all — the course uses air dry clay with fibres added for extra strength, finished with acrylic paint and brush-on varnish to make it water resistant. Freya also shows home substitutes for studio tools, such as a tea towel or newspaper instead of a canvas, books instead of measuring guides, cardboard instead of a turntable, and a kitchen fork or knife for scoring. If you do have kiln access, she explains how the same clay can be fired to earthenware or stoneware temperatures.

Coil building is a primary, highly versatile technique — Freya explains you can make almost anything with it, from vases and bowls to cutlery, sculptures and even a toilet. Because you build height in stages and let the clay stiffen as you go, you can create wide, voluptuous or deliberately wonky forms that would be difficult on a wheel. With practice, coiled pots can be refined until they look wheel-thrown, while still carrying the character of your own hands.

Freya demonstrates smoothing a leather hard pot with metal and rubber kidneys, filling pit holes and sponging the surface before decorating. She then shows a three-layer paint system — a white acrylic base coat, blended colour work in pinks, greens and blues, and a gloss or matte varnish to seal the piece — including the commonly forgotten inside base and underside. She also shares how to follow the form intuitively with colour and use paint pens for highlights and detail.

All of our courses are online, meaning that you are able to watch them whenever and wherever suits you best. There is no beginning or finish date and they’re completely self-paced so that you can stop, start and pause each lesson to fit around your own schedule. You can begin watching a course as soon as you purchase it – simply login to your Create Academy account whenever you have a quiet moment to yourself.

Yes! You can rewatch each lesson as many times as you’d like. If you have purchased an individual course, you will have lifetime access to it, so you’ll be able to rewatch and dip in and out of each lesson forever - perfect if you have a busy schedule! If you purchased an annual subscription, you can enjoy full access to all of our lessons until you choose to cancel.

If you have purchased an individual course, you will have life time access.

An annual subscription gives you access to all courses for 12 months from the date of purchase, including those released during that period. Our subscriptions are set to automatically renew after 12 months so you have the benefit of uninterrupted access! If you choose to cancel, you will no longer have access to the platform.

Below each video lesson you’ll find the link to download the corresponding workbook pages. If you’d like to download the whole workbook at once, simply navigate to the very first lesson in the course and click 'Download Workbook'.

We’re on a mission to help you build your creative confidence and live a more creatively fulfilled life. Through beautifully curated video courses, we give you unprecedented access to the expertise of today’s best designers, makers, gardeners and chefs - allowing you to unlock your creativity whenever and wherever you want.

Yes – all our courses are available internationally. Please note, all our courses are taught in English.