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Porcelain handbuilding online workshop

Join this 6-week online workshop to learn the art of porcelain hand-building for your handmade projects.
Antoinette will guide you in making porcelain paper clay and incorporating fibers and grog to control clay movement.
Discover pinching techniques that help you "see" with your fingers, and explore mold making, slab building, patching, coiling, tool and die making.
You'll also experiment with sprigs to enhance your clay work, learn how to extrude without an extruder, and create your own collectible porcelain bottles with ease.
​Duration of class
6 weeks formal video classes, 4 weeks reviewing
10 weeks total viewing

Contents of the class

Translucent porcelain pinched bowl displayed on a sculpted porcelain leaf. The natural light from the side highlights the shadows and curving of both pottery items. Made by ceramic artist Antoinette Badenhorst from Saltillo Mississippi.

Press molded porcelain plate with a hand formed bowl.

Week 1: Hand building: an understanding
  • Dig into the history of porcelain clay as potters use it for sculpture and functional ware.
  • See how to use the characteristics of porcelain to your benefit.
  • Why hand-building and not wheel throwing?
  • What is considered as hand building in pottery terms?
  • Can hand building be combined with wheel throwing?
  • How does porcelain hand building differ from hand building with other clay bodies like stoneware and earthenware?
  • How to get translucent hand-built porcelain.
  • Porcelain works like a clay, but when fired becomes glass like.
  • Which tools and equipment works best for porcelain clay
A translucent press molded porcelain sculpture in the shape of wavy leaves in the wind. The inside of the porcelain vessel is red with a soft white of the porcelain clay on the outside. The sculpture is resting on a white handmade porcelain foot. The background is black at the top that moves into a gray bottom that reflects the shades from the light above. Antoinette Badenhorst handbuilt this ceramic art piece.

Press molded porcelain, altered and carved.

​Week 2: Porcelain: let the Diva work
  • Use all the right tools and skills to make it work for hand building.
  • Which hand building methods are most suitable for porcelain?
  • Basic porcelain rules for hand building.
  • A potpourri of examples that we examined in my pottery studio in Mississippi. 
​Week 3: Coiling and pinching
  • Basics about using clay coils for handbuilding.
  • Pinching porcelain and build a vessel.
  • Score the clay and add more clay to a handmade object.
Week 4: Scrape and Shape 
  • Creating homemade dies for pottery.
  • Explore hand extruders for claywork.
  • Let your homemade dies work
  • Creating a vase
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Press molded porcelain work in the studio.

Week 5: Making molds
  • Press molding considerations
  • Building a picture
  • Make your molds versatile
  • Build a vessel
  • Finishing.
​Week 6: All about slabs
  • Preparing and throwing a slab 
  • Leather hard slabs
  • Thin and pliable – soft slabs
  • A container
  • Translucent object
My classes are loaded with tips and techniques - With 40 years of ceramics experience, I can assist potters in almost any clay related topic.