Highlights from After-School Pottery

A beautiful collection of plates and bowls has emerged from this term’s After-School Pottery Club. The group is a lively mix of beginners and some who’ve been with Hags Pottery for over two years - and their progress really shows.

Throughout the Spring Term, they’ve explored a range of hand-building techniques, including pinch potting and slab work using moulds. Some even had a go on the wheel for finishing touches, when time (and supervision) allowed.

Little hands have been busy in our after-school classes this term - shaping, pinching, and forming clay into delightful creations. From the very first pinch of clay to the final glaze firing, it’s been such a joy to watch these young makers bring their ideas to life.

… teaching a range of ceramics classes to adults and children in my garden studio, while learning and experimenting with this incredible art form as I study for my ceramics diploma. I combine this with my work as artist educator as part of the Courtauld Gallery learning team.

This term at Hags Pottery after-school classes, we embarked on an exciting journey - designing and creating miniature buildings from clay.

A Pottery Project Full of Patterns & Precision

In January, our after-school classes resumed at the studio with an exciting project — designing unique patterns to transfer onto clay tiles and plates. The children dove right into the creative process, experimenting with different shapes, colors, and designs, each one eager to make their own mark. The designs were transferred onto plates, and the students began to learn the importance of balance and proportion, setting the foundation for their next steps.

Our after-school class has been busy creating stunning ceramic tiles this term, and the results are fantastic!

The children began by sketching their designs on paper before rolling out the clay, using guides to ensure an even thickness. Next came the exciting part - adding shapes, textures, and patterns to bring each tile to life.

I thought I would share the results of our first three weeks of classes in our Garden studio.

Children began by learning how to prepare or ‘wedge’ the clay, and made simple pinch pots, formed into the shape of their choice.

Children's Art School has been very quiet over the last few years, but never went away.

I have been leading an Art and DT department at a local prep school while colleagues kept our founding After-School Art Club at Pelham Primary School thriving.

Covid-19 meant that our art workshop activity had to stop, and was life changing for me in many ways, as it meant that Children's Art School became reformulated in my mind and is re-born as Hags Pottery.

This term at Pelham Art Club we are taking part in a large scale project organised by the arts organisation AccessArt.

The aim of the project is simple: to inspire the AccessArt audience of all ages (children, teenagers and adults) to make a sewn drawing of their home on a 20 cm square piece of fabric. The sewn squares will then be sent to AccessArt, where artist Andrea Butler is busy bringing the individual pieces together into an artwork (the AccessArt Village) which celebrates the diversity of their audience. The finished artwork will tour to venues in the UK in 2018, before being split into smaller pieces which will be gifted to schools.

Playing Seriously

In our first Art Club session back at Merton Park Primary School, after the Christmas holidays, we began to explore ideas around building, structures and machinery.

I have been interested the idea of ‘serious play’ for a while in the work that I do; that is playing with ideas or materials with a purpose.

After taking my children to family events as part of Tate Britain’s Big and Small programme, I was inspired by composer Neil Luck and artist Dan Scott’s work for children, that invites them to respond to music through mark making.

Pelham After-School Art Club (Autumn Term Project)

For the first session at the Merton Park After-School Art Club, we decided to take advantage of the late September sun and do some drawing outside. Our focus was on leaves and the variety of shapes they form.

We began by exploring lines and shapes using graded pencils. We experimented with both quick sketches and more detailed studies of the leaves.

Pelham After-School Art Club (Autumn Term Project)

This term at Pelham Primary Schools’ art club we will be commemorating Pelham’s willow tree, before it is sadly felled to make room for much needed classrooms.

We started by documenting the tree in preparation for the project. We drew quick sketches and made rubbings outside in fine liner, charcoal, wax and pencil. We looked up into the canopy, at the shapes of the brances, and the texture of the bark up close. We took impressions of the bark by pressing  clay into the surface of the tree.