Raku Workshop – 2 Day Make Glaze & Fire: June/July 2026
Join us for the second of 2026’s two day raku workshops that uses a variety of hand building techniques to take you from raw clay to finished, fired, glazed work ready for you to take home. This fun and relaxed workshop, led by local ceramicists Richard Jeffery and Jayne Cunliffe, is suitable for absolute beginners, or for those with some ceramics experience who want to see the raku process through from start to finish. The workshop will have a maximum of six students and is run in Jayne’s pottery studio in the old chicken shed (better than it sounds!) at Sandy Hill Arts in Corfe Castle.
Day One Saturday 20th June – Make a number of pieces using basic hand building techniques: slab building (making work from rolled out flat slabs of clay), pinch pots and coiling. These are two of the earliest ceramic techniques, allowing you to build up simple or complex shapes by forming clay with your hands and then adding thin ‘sausages’ of clay to expand the form.
Day Two Saturday 4th July – Help prepare a variety of glazes to decorate your work in whichever way you choose, with support and suggestions from your tutors if needed, and help fire the work outdoors in the raku kiln. The raku firing is the culmination of this workshop – helping load the kiln and manage the firing, smoking and washing your beautiful pots ready to take home…
Cost – The two day workshop costs £140 (£115 tuition fee plus £25 materials costs, including clay, glazes, bisque and raku firing) per person. Each day runs from 10 – 4. Please wear old, warm clothes. There will be tea and coffee, and maybe biscuits. We break for around 45 minutes at lunchtime. Bring a packed lunch or get something in the village centre – a 3 minute walk away.
