Wheel Throwing or Handbuilding: What's the Difference?
Updated: Sep 16
Wheel throwing and handbuilding are the two primary ways of shaping clay into pottery. The main difference is that wheel throwing uses the potter’s wheel to shape clay as it spins, while handbuilding uses your hands and simple tools to build forms directly from clay.
Both methods can be used to make functional pottery, sculptural work and objects for the home, but they involve different techniques and offer different ways of designing with clay.
Neither method is inherently more creative or more advanced than the other. They simply give potters different ways to turn an idea into a three-dimensional form, and many potters eventually use both.
What is Wheel Throwing?
One-Time Potter's Wheel pots show variation in size, proportion and glaze. Developing wheel skills opens the door to taller and more complex forms. Wheel-thrown forms can become coordinated pieces for everyday use. Repeating a form is an important wheel-throwing skill, especially when making related pieces. Forms that begin on the wheel can be altered and combined to create less conventional shapes. Even a simple bowl can be altered after throwing to change its shape, function and character.
Wheel throwing is the process of shaping clay while it spins on a potter’s wheel. The potter centers a ball of clay, opens it, and uses pressure from the hands and fingers to pull and shape the walls.
Because the wheel is rotating, beginners usually start by learning to make cylindrical forms. From that basic cylinder come many of the forms associated with wheel-thrown pottery, including cups, bowls, vases, bottles and planters.
How Does Wheel Throwing Work for Beginners?
For beginners, wheel throwing is largely about learning a sequence of physical skills: centering the clay, opening it, establishing the base and pulling the walls upward while controlling the speed of the wheel. It takes practice for those movements to begin working together.
At Throw Clay LA, a beginner’s first wheel-thrown form is usually a small bowl, something about the size you might use for ice cream or salsa. As skills develop, that basic understanding of centering and pulling can be used to create taller, wider and more complex forms.
What Can I Make on the Wheel?
Once the basic mechanics become familiar, the wheel can be used to make cups, bowls, plates, planters, pitchers, bottles, vases and larger forms. Because the clay rotates around a central axis, wheel-thrown pottery naturally begins with round forms, but it doesn't have to stay that way.
Thrown pieces can be altered, cut, stretched, combined or given handbuilt additions. A cylinder can become a mug with a handle, a round form can be reshaped after it leaves the wheel, and several thrown sections can be joined to create something much larger.
With practice, the wheel also allows potters to repeat forms with similar proportions, making it particularly useful for sets of cups, bowls, plates and other related pieces.
What Is Handbuilding?
Pinch, coil and slab pots made in class. Coil building directly with clay allows forms to develop and change as you work. Handbuilding makes plenty of room for humor, personality and unexpected ideas. Figurative work is another direction to explore when building with clay by hand. Handbuilt pottery can be just as refined and useful as work made on the wheel. Simple tools can be used to shape, refine and add texture to handbuilt clay.
Handbuilding is making pottery without using a potter’s wheel. Instead, you work directly with the clay using your hands and simple tools to build, shape, join and alter forms.
The three fundamental handbuilding techniques are pinch, coil and slab. Pinching uses your fingers to shape a ball of clay. Coil building uses long rolls of clay that are stacked and joined to build a form. Slab building begins with flat sheets of clay that can be cut, folded, curved and joined together.
These techniques can be used individually or combined, giving you enormous freedom to experiment with shape, scale, texture and design. Handbuilding can be used to make everything from mugs, bowls and serving pieces to lamps, boxes, planters, sculptural forms and objects that don't fit neatly into any category.
What Should I Expect in a Handbuilding Pottery Course?
A handbuilding pottery course teaches you how to work with clay directly rather than relying on the potter’s wheel. Beginners learn how to control thickness, join pieces securely, build forms that will survive drying and firing, and use techniques such as pinching, coiling and slab construction.
At Throw Clay LA, our handbuilding courses go beyond simply learning the mechanics. As your skills develop, you can explore form, surface, proportion and design, using clay to develop your own ideas and create increasingly individual work.
Wheel Throwing or Handbuilding: Which Should You Choose?
Your choice comes down largely to the kinds of forms you want to make and how you prefer to work with clay. If you are drawn to round forms such as bowls, cups, cylinders and vases, wheel throwing may be a good place to start. If you want greater freedom to build sculptural, asymmetrical or highly designed forms, handbuilding may appeal to you more.
There is no reason to choose one and stick with it.
Many potters learn both. A form can begin on the wheel and be altered by hand, or handbuilt elements can be added to a wheel-thrown piece. Learning both methods gives you more ways to turn an idea into clay.
What Are the Most Popular Pottery Classes at Throw Clay LA?
At Throw Clay LA, wheel throwing is often the first thing people associate with pottery, and our beginner wheel classes are consistently popular. Students learn the fundamentals of centering, opening and pulling clay on the potter’s wheel before developing those skills into cups, bowls, cylinders and other forms.
Handbuilding offers a different way to begin. Instead of learning to control clay on a spinning wheel, students work directly with clay using pinch, coil and slab techniques. Handbuilding is especially appealing to people interested in sculpture, surface design and creating forms that aren't limited by the symmetry of the wheel.
Our one-time pottery experiences give beginners a chance to try pottery without committing to a longer course. Students who want to develop their skills can continue into six-week Build Skills courses and then Refine & Explore courses focused on particular forms, techniques and design ideas.
About Throw Clay LA
Whether you’re curious to try pottery for the first time or ready to develop your skills, Throw Clay LA offers one-time pottery experiences, six-week Build Skills courses, and six-week Refine & Explore courses in wheel throwing and handbuilding at our studio in Downtown Los Angeles.
We also offer pottery workshops and private pottery events for groups, while studio memberships provide experienced potters with dedicated space and time to pursue their own work, along with access to studio equipment, glazes, firing services and free weekly Member Clinics.
