Why Hand Building Is the Best Place to Start with Pottery

When people think of pottery, they often picture someone sitting at a wheel, gently gliding their hands through the clay to create a beautiful mug or bowl. Or perhaps they think it's all quite romantic, like that famous scene from Ghost.

Don't get me wrong – I love throwing on the wheel. It makes for a brilliant date night or a fun activity with friends. However, if you're seriously thinking about taking up pottery long-term and want to dedicate some real time to learning and refining your skills, I'd actually recommend starting with hand building.

Here are the three biggest reasons why I think it's the best place to start.

1. Accessibility

You really don't need much to get started with hand building pottery. I started from my kitchen table in a small studio flat, sometimes even on a tray while watching television. It's possible to make some impressive pieces using just a handful of tools – or even none at all. Pottery wheels are expensive, and even a decent budget wheel can set you back several hundred pounds. If you're a complete beginner, you probably won't want to make that kind of investment before you even know whether pottery is something you want to do long-term.

Hand building requires far less commitment in terms of both time and money. Better still, you don't necessarily need a teacher to get started. While taking a class is always helpful, there are plenty of excellent books, YouTube tutorials and online resources that will teach you the basics.

Learning to throw on the wheel, on the other hand, usually requires some guidance. You’ll need at least some lessons to learn the basics such as centring clay and pulling up the walls of a pot.

2. Hand building teaches you the fundamentals of working with clay

If you really want to understand how clay behaves, hand building is one of the best ways to learn. You'll soon discover how far you can push the clay, its limitations, and the hardest skill to learn - patience!

You'll learn about drying times, moisture levels and structural integrity, as well as how to troubleshoot common problems such as warping, cracking and glaze fails. You'll also begin to understand which clay bodies are best suited to different projects, whether that's a smooth clay for fine detail or a grogged clay for larger, more robust pieces.

When I took my first wheel-throwing class, after 8 years of hand building and slip-casting, I found that throwing came more naturally and it didn't take long for me to advance my skills. I put this down to already having a solid understanding of how clay moves and responds.

It's also worth remembering that many wheel-thrown pieces aren't actually finished when they come off the wheel. Handles, spouts, lids and decorative reliefs are often added by hand. Through hand building, you'll already have developed essential techniques such as scoring and slipping, making those finishing touches much easier.

Pinching is one of the 3 key hand building techniques, perfect for making a wide range of shapes and forms

3. Flexibility

Although you can create beautifully refined work on the wheel, it's primarily designed for making symmetrical, cylindrical forms. With hand building, there are far fewer limitations.

Pinching, coiling, slab building and sculpting all allow you to create organic, asymmetrical and expressive forms that simply aren't possible on the wheel. I've really enjoyed making quirky mugs, abstract sculptures and decorative pieces with a little more creative freedom than the pieces I throw on the wheel.

Some may disagree, but I often find that hand built work has a little more character and expression than wheel-thrown pottery. It may be harder to achieve a perfectly uniform finish, but that's often part of its charm. There are fewer rules, which means more room for creativity.

Final thoughts

Of course this is just my perspective and there really isn't a right or wrong way to start your pottery journey. But if someone asked me where to start, I'd always recommend hand building first. It's affordable, flexible, and one of the best ways to really get to know clay. Hopefully I've convinced you to give it a go!

My advice? Just get started.

You don't need expensive equipment or a fully equipped studio. All you need is some clay, a few basic tools and a willingness to experiment.

Just be warned – pottery has a habit of developing into an obsession. Before long, you may well catch the bug, disappear down the rabbit hole, and find yourself completely hooked!

This beautiful butter dish was made using hand-rolled slabs, formed over a plaster hump mould. This technique is perfect for creating multiple of the same sized and shaped pieces