Coil Building Basics with 15 Decorative Coil Techniques! An Easy Beginners Tutorial in Clay!

This video covers the foundational basics of building pottery by using coils as well as using 15 different decorative coil techniques which my Ceramics I students use in making a coil skillbuilder, and will use many of these techniques on our sculptural shoe project. I have a FOLLOW-UP video on how to clean the carving for greater precision, which can be found here: As promised, here is the pdf I made of the poster of techniques and step by step assembly: If I can find the original document with the photos of coil techniques, I will share that as well. Coil rolling is a skill to develop and here are some of my tips I show and explain: 1 squish clay into a sausage shape 2 twist ends in opposite directions 3 roll using your whole palm 4 pull hands apart to thin 5 push hands together to thicken 6 moisten coil occasionally 7 score and slip and blend first co