Explore clay through touch, movement, and intuition in this 8-week handbuilding course led by artist and educator Lauren McNicoll.
This course takes an embodied, process-led approach to ceramics, using your body and hands as tools for making. Alongside building a strong technical foundation, you’ll be encouraged to engage with clay in an instinctive and physical way, exploring how gesture, pressure, and repetition can shape form.
Rooted in Lauren’s sculptural practice, the sessions create space to experiment, play, and discover new ways of forming and thinking through clay.
Designed for all experience levels, each class combines guided learning with room to follow your own direction. With a small group of just six participants, you’ll have the time and support to develop your skills while exploring what feels most natural and enjoyable in your own creative process.
What to Expect
Across eight weeks, you’ll build a strong foundation in handbuilding while gradually expanding into more experimental and embodied approaches.
Each session introduces a new way of working, combining demonstrations, practical exercises, and process-led exploration. You’ll be encouraged to engage physically with clay, using touch, movement, and repetition to develop your forms.
As the course progresses, you’ll begin to combine techniques and work more independently, culminating in a self-directed final project.
While the course offers structure, it remains responsive to the group, with space to follow your own direction and explore what feels most natural in your making.
Week-by-Week Overview
Week 1: The Tactility of Clay
Your first session focuses on getting comfortable with stoneware clay and how it responds to your touch. You’ll be introduced to the studio, including tools, storage systems, firing processes, and health and safety.
From there, you’ll begin working with pinch techniques, creating two to three small vessels. This process helps you understand how clay behaves at different stages, from soft to leather-hard. You’ll also be introduced to basic coils and slabs, using them to add features such as handles, bases, and decorative elements, transforming simple forms into functional objects.
Week 2: Building with Coils
You’ll explore coil building in more depth, learning how to construct larger and more expressive forms, with the freedom to work at your own scale and level of complexity. This technique lends itself to organic shapes, and you may create pieces such as body-inspired vessels, candelabras, or sculptural forms influenced by natural textures like coral or branches.
Week 3: Building with Slabs
This session focuses on slab construction, with guidance tailored to what you’d like to make. You may choose to create functional objects such as jugs or dishes, or explore more sculptural forms. Demonstrations will respond to the group’s interests, helping you develop both technique and confidence.
Week 4: Creating Form Using the Body
This session introduces a more experimental, process-led approach in a guided and supportive way. Through a series of guided exercises, you’ll explore actions such as pressing, squeezing, layering, and shaping clay with your hands, arms, and body weight.
Some exercises are individual, focusing on touch and repetition, while others are collaborative, where you’ll work together to build and reshape shared forms. These explorations are less about outcome and more about discovering new ways of working, often resulting in unexpected and expressive pieces that can be developed further.
Week 5: Working with Slip & Surface
You’ll be introduced to a range of decorative techniques, including sgraffito, slip inlay, illustrative painting, and textured surface application. After testing these techniques on sample slabs, you’ll have time to apply them to your own existing work or begin planning your final project.
Weeks 6-7: Self-Led Project
Across two sessions, you’ll design and create a personal project, combining the techniques you’ve learned throughout the course. You’ll begin by discussing and planning your idea, sketching and mapping out how you’ll use your time.
This is an opportunity to follow your own creative direction, and projects can vary widely depending on your interests, whether functional sets, sculptural, or somewhere in between. With guidance throughout, you’ll develop your piece from initial concept through to completion.
Week 8: Glazing & Finishing
In the final session, you’ll glaze your work and complete the making process. You’ll be introduced to different glazing approaches and finishes, allowing you to bring colour, texture, and depth to your pieces.
What You’ll Gain
By the end of the course, you will have:
- A strong foundation in all fundamental handbuilding techniques, including coil building, slab building, pinching, and sculpting
- Experience working with clay in both structured and experimental ways
- An introduction to embodied making and using the body as a creative tool
- Knowledge and experience of slip decoration techniques such as sgraffito, inlay and illustrative painting
- The ability to plan and complete a self-led ceramic project
- A collection of unique, handmade ceramic pieces
You’ll also leave with a deeper understanding of your own creative process, and a greater sense of confidence working with clay independently.
What You Might Make
Throughout the course, you’ll have the opportunity to create a wide range of pieces, depending on your interests and approach.
These may include:
- Functional objects such as mugs, bowls, plates, jugs, butter dishes, and candleholders
- Sculptural forms including figurative pieces, textured vessels, and organic shapes
- Surface-led works exploring pattern, carving, and slip decoration
- Larger statement pieces such as vases, candelabras, or sculptural forms
You’re encouraged to explore both small-scale studies and more ambitious pieces as your skills develop.
Who This Course Is For
This course is open to everyone, whether you’re completely new to clay or looking to expand your practice.
Beginners will gain a strong foundation in handbuilding, while more experienced makers will find space to experiment, push their ideas further, and explore new ways of working.
Course Dates:
Week 1: Sunday 28 June 2026
Week 2: Sunday 5 July 2026
Week 3: Sunday 12 July 2026
Week 4: Sunday 19 July 2026
Week 5: Sunday 26 July 2026
Week 6: Sunday 2 August 2026
Week 7: Sunday 9 August 2026
Week 8: Sunday 16 August 2026
Please note: Missed sessions cannot be rescheduled.
Class Times:
10am - 12:30pm (2.5 hours per session)
Please note: the final 30 minutes are dedicated to cleaning and organising work.
Please arrive no earlier than 5 minutes before the session begins, as there is no waiting area and the studio will be in preparation.
Work created during the course will be fired in the studio kiln and can be collected once completed.
Please note: Work will need sufficient drying time before firing to ensure it is ready for glazing. Any pieces not ready in time will be single fired and returned unglazed.
Tutor Bio:
Working across sculpture, education, and facilitation, I explore clay as a material of connection, joy, and embodied process. Alongside my current technical and teaching roles across independent ceramic studios and UAL, I run experimental workshops that blur the boundaries between making, movement, and performance, inviting participants to engage clay through sensation and play. My approach merges technical foundation with intuitive exploration. Recent work has been shown at VFD, Pocko Gallery, and Ugly Duck.
About SET Ceramics:
SET Ceramics is a contemporary community pottery studio tucked away inside a beautifully converted former cobbler’s shop on Crutched Friars, less than a minute from Fenchurch Street Station and a short walk from Tower Gateway.
Part of the arts organisation and registered charity SET, the space functions as both a working hub for members and an artist-led learning environment for the public. Alongside affordable studio memberships, we offer public courses, workshops, and kiln hire led entirely by practising ceramic artists.
With four pottery wheels, a 220-litre kiln, hand-building stations, glazing and finishing facilities, and dedicated studio spaces, SET Ceramics is set up for people who want to spend real time making and building skills. Course discounts apply for SET Studio Members and residents of the City of London.
Instagram account: @setceramicset