Explore the relationship between form and surface in this 8-week handbuilding course led by artist Francisco Zhan.
With a strong focus on surface, texture, and decoration, this course approaches ceramics as both structure and skin - something to build, carve, mark, and transform. Alongside learning core handbuilding techniques, you’ll focus on how surface can shape and define the final work, from functional objects to more sculptural pieces.
Cultivating both technical skill and material experimentation, the course offers a space to build confidence with ceramic processes while developing your own ideas and direction. With a small group of up to 6 participants, sessions adapt to the group's pace, with guidance tailored to support differing levels of experience, ambition and appetite.
What to Expect
This handbuilding course places particular emphasis on how clay can be transformed through carving, marking, and surface treatment. Across eight weeks, you’ll build a strong foundation in handbuilding techniques, including pinching, coiling, slab building, and block carving, while learning how to develop and refine your work through each stage of the ceramic process.
Alongside this, you’ll explore a range of decorating and surface techniques, using slips, glazes, and resists to create texture, pattern, and layered finishes, as well as more experimental approaches such as inlay, sgraffito, and marbling.
Each session introduces a clear focus, combining demonstration with time to develop your own work. Francisco’s demos act as invitations, so you’re free to follow them closely or use the studio as an open space to explore your own ideas.
As the course progresses, more time is given to personal projects and independent making, allowing you to bring techniques together and develop a more individual approach to working with clay.
Week-by-Week Overview
Week 1: Introduction to Clay - Pinching & Coiling
You’ll be introduced to clay and the key stages of the ceramic process. Through pinch and coil techniques, you’ll begin creating simple forms while developing an understanding of how clay behaves and responds to your touch.
Week 2: Slab Building & Surface Basics
This session introduces slab construction alongside texturing and basic slip decoration. You’ll explore how surface can be applied and manipulated from the earliest stages of making.
Week 3: Carving, Recycling & Experimental Surface
You’ll be introduced to the traditional Japanese subtractive technique of kurinuki (block carving), alongside clay recycling, marbling, and expressive slip techniques. This week focuses on shaping through removal and developing a more surface-led approach.
Week 4: Glaze Tests & Refinement
You’ll learn how to glaze and decorate test pieces, building an understanding of how different finishes behave in the kiln. You’ll also refine and hollow out previously made forms where needed.
Weeks 5-7: Personal Project & Open Studio Development
These sessions are dedicated to developing your own work. You’ll plan and create a personal project, combining the techniques you’ve learned so far.
You can follow a clear idea or work more intuitively, using the time to experiment, refine, or extend earlier pieces. Guidance is tailored to your individual direction and pace.
Week 8: Final Glazing & Completion
In the final session, you’ll glaze your finished pieces.
What You’ll Gain
By the end of the course, you will:
- Understand the full ceramic process, from raw clay to fired and finished work
- Be confident using all core handbuilding techniques, including pinching, coiling, slab building, and carving
- Develop a strong understanding of surface techniques, including slip decoration, texture, marbling, inlay, and sgraffito
- Gain experience in glazing and finishing your work
- Learn how to plan and realise your own ceramic projects
- Build confidence working both technically and creatively with clay
You’ll also leave with a collection of handmade ceramic pieces that reflect your own ideas and approach.
What You Might Make
Throughout the course, you’ll have the opportunity to create a wide range of work, depending on your interests.
This might include functional objects such as mugs, bowls, candleholders, trays, and containers, alongside more sculptural or decorative pieces such as carved vessels, wall-based works, low-reliefs, and experimental forms.
You may also explore more surface-led pieces, including textured tiles, slip-decorated objects, or works that sit between sculpture and function.
You’re encouraged to work at your own scale and level of complexity, developing pieces that reflect your ideas and approach.
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: Monday 7 September 2026
Week 2: Monday 14 September 2026
Week 3: Monday 21 September 2026
Week 4: Monday 28 September 2026
Week 5: Monday 5 October 2026
Week 6: Monday 12 October 2026
Week 7: Monday 19 October 2026
Week 8: Monday 26 October 2026
Please note: Missed sessions cannot be rescheduled.
Class Times:
7.30pm - 10pm (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.
Tutor Statement:
www.franciscozhan.com
@francisco.zhan - instagram.com/francisco.zhan
Francisco Zhan (he/him) is a visual artist working with ceramic sculpture, writing and performance. He is interested in skeletons in closets, as much as closeted skeletons.
Francisco’s work takes shape through questions of queer practice, auto-ethnography and transhumanism. He borrows the language of ceramic relics, fashion phenomena and pop symbols to investigate history as a material – one that’s not inert, but alive, persistent and embodied in our everyday lives.
He has taught ceramics at Camden Art Centre, Maison S. Sommet, and Mudgang Pottery CIC, and brings a thoughtful, open approach to teaching that supports a wide range of ideas and ways of making.
Francisco currently studies Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, where he was awarded the RCA President and Vice-Chancellor Scholarship, following his BA at Goldsmiths University (2016). His love for making has taken him to residencies at Sanbao Ceramics Institute in Jingdezhen and Casapiena in Sicily, and his work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. In 2024, he was awarded a Grand Plan Fund project grant.
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