Ted Secombe - Throwing Porcelain
The Ceramic School
Hi, my name is Ted Secombe!
This afternoon, I'm excited to share with you my step-by-step techniques for crafting pots, starting from the preparation of the clay to the entire making process. We'll delve into my throwing techniques, focusing on balance, managing pressures, lifting and shaping clay, all while exploring the philosophy that guides my approach. Moving forward, we'll also explore the trimming processes, aiming to minimize the need for extensive trimming. Porcelain, in particular, can be quite labor-intensive during this stage, and I'll do my best to pass on my insights to all of you who are joining me at this workshop.
After this workshop you could be making amazing pieces like these:












When you buy this workshop, you get:
- Instant Access to Watch my pre-recorded Workshop
- The workshop is 1 hour 9 minutes long.
- You can watch it as soon as you purchase this workshop & login to your account.
- Bonus Q&A
- Watch my bonus Q&A where I answered questions about my process face-to-face.
- Watch my bonus Q&A where I answered questions about my process face-to-face.
- Lifetime Access to the Replays
- The workshop and the Q&A are recorded, and you will have lifetime access to it. You can watch it online, or download it to your device to watch offline at any time.

After 4 decades at his potter’s wheel, Ted Secombe says that making pots is more challenging now than when he first began, as his motivation is purely the expression of his ideas and creativity. He has now developed a mastery of the medium that allows him to take his experimentation further than ever before.
Ted likes to work with different shapes and now prefers much simpler forms, forms with the sense of an easy curve, ‘like a brush stroke’. ‘My inspiration comes when the clay is on the wheel and I am looking at the sensuousness of the curve,’ he says. Sometimes he is influenced by the structure of plants and leaves. Ted’s other passion is gardening, and he has created a glorious garden around his studio.
While the grace and form of the pots is impressive, the glazes Ted uses are rich in colour, and delicate in texture and patterning.
Ted Secombe is well known for his beautiful crystalline glazes, as well as his pots of cobalt blue and deep crimson. He works with a huge range of colours and, as with his forms, Ted is always experimenting and developing new ranges of glazes, some of which are reminiscent of ancient Chinese glazes. The glazes involve different firing procedures as Ted is always attempting to achieve the best possible results by altering time, temperatures and heating rates to his firings.
The colours in his garden are also an inspiration to him, and his glazes in autumnal colours are a direct response to the autumn season in Victoria. Ted lived in Queensland for many years, originally establishing a studio in Toowoomba in 1979, before he moved to the Yarra Valley in 1989.
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Course content
| 1 | Ted Secombe - Throwing Porcelain | locked |
| 2 | Ted Secombe - Q & A | locked |
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