With over 1000 students visiting each year, Kinsale Pottery is the largest private crafts teaching centre in Ireland. Housed in a 250-year-old coach house and stables just outside the ancient town of Kinsale and overlooking the Bandon River, the Pottery runs classes and courses on pottery, stained glass, weaving, children’s arts and crafts and even how to run a pottery business.
“We teach beginners and those with ceramics experience, from Ireland and internationally; and over the years, we’ve also offered a range of specialist courses in other crafts, from batik, weaving and shoe-making to jewellery, mosaics and glass fusing. This year we want to broaden our offering to include ‘Paint Your Own Pottery’,” says General Manager, Anne McManamon (pictured top).
Paint Your Own Pottery is a relatively new activity for tourists and locals in Ireland, but it’s a long-established and hugely popular business across Europe and the US. Unlike traditional pottery courses, which involve building ceramic pieces from scratch, that must then be dried, biscuit-fired, glazed and re-fired,: Paint Your Own Pottery is all about decorating ready-made biscuit-fired pieces with paint-on glazes. As participants are helped by experts, this is an ideal activity for beginners. Visitors choose from the pottery’s great selection of biscuit-fired pieces – from plates, cups and teapots to whacky sculptures, trinket boxes and ornaments, based on what they want to paint and what they want to spend. Sessions last a couple of hours and everything is then left at the pottery for glaze firing and is ready for collection a few days later.
“Pottery painting is the perfect outlet for self-expression and creativity,” says Anne “From selecting the perfect piece to choosing a custom colour palette and designing your own unique patterns, PYOP empowers you to create a one-of-a-kind work of art that reflects your personal style.”
Kinsale Pottery offers weekly bookable public classes for adults and children aged eight and above, adult evening sessions and pottery painting parties for groups of six to 20 people. All materials and firings are provided, and there’s a choice of refreshments available.
“For those who still want to get the full throw-down experience, we have our usual half, one and two-day classes in pottery-making. This is maybe an ideal ‘toe-in-the-water’ experience that will lead people to join one of our courses.” says Anne.
Full details and online booking available on the Kinsale Pottery website www.kinsaleceramics.com or call to make a group enquiry on 085 8808395 or 086 1595777.
