
Pottery From Nature
You can make pottery like the ancients
using just your hands and simple tools.
Essential Tools
Ancient Potters Club
Membership includes:
- 4 primitive pottery masterclasses (clay, coil, paint and firing)
- Over 50 “build along” classes (hundreds of hours of exclusive pottery making videos)
- Weekly live Zoom pottery class.
- Access to the Ancient Pottery Discord community of potters.
- Invitations to exclusive meet-ups and special events.
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Meet your teacher
I’m Andy Ward, a primitive pottery enthusiast with over 30 years of experience, mentored by top experts and honed through extensive trial and error. As a young man eager to master prehistoric pottery techniques, I faced limited opportunities due to the high cost of workshops. My goal is to share content that empowers potters to explore ancient methods and materials and crafting stunning pottery like our ancestors did.
Primitive Pottery Masterclasses
Coil Pottery Making 101
Learn the coil-and-scrape pottery making technique in simple, easy to follow video lessons. Explore the ancient art of coil building pottery by hand, these detailed video lessons take you into the instructors studio with detailed explanations of the process. This course will give you the skills and techniques to hand-build pottery in the manner of the prehistoric people of the Southwest, and an attractive certificate to prove it!
Wild Clay 101
In this course I will take you out into the field around the Southwest to look at various actual clay beds. This is the kind of help that you need when starting out but is hard to find, seeing clay and being taught what to look for and how to tell if it is good. I will then cover how to process your clay to make it usable for hand-building. When you are done with this course you will know how to locate and process native clay like a pro.
Outdoor Pottery Firing 101
This course teaches the ancient art of outdoor, above-ground pottery firing. I will explain the science behind a pottery fire, give tips on selecting the best wood and fire safety, then lead you through several complete outdoor pottery firings. All video based learning so you can come along with me as I fire pottery in the way practiced by the ancient Mogollon while I explain what is being done and why it is being done.
Natural Pottery Paints, Slips & Pigments
In this course you will learn how to make many types of natural pottery paints. You will see examples of raw minerals, then learn how to process those and the recipes to make your own paints for pottery. Mineral paints, organic paints, yucca paintbrushes, the process of levigation and much more are all covered in great detail. After completion of this class you will be able to make your own natural pottery paint.
FREE “How to Make a Puki” lesson
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