SGRAFFITO – Workshop with Clara Holt
Guest Artists Workshop120,00 €
- Play with clay in a freer, more instinctive way
- Let gravity become part of your creative process
- Turn a flat slab into soft, organic forms
On Saturday, April 15, 2027, together with Clara Holt, we’ll explore a more playful and instinctive way of working with clay.
We’ll build our own soft moulds, prepare and decorate clay slabs, then let them fall. Gravity, weight and impact will shape the clay around the mould, creating soft, organic forms that are never entirely predictable.
A workshop about experimenting with the material, embracing the unexpected and discovering what happens when you give up a little control.
Book the Date
- Duration: 360 minutes
- Max participants: 10
- Type: Single event
Sgraffito is an ancient decorative technique with a long history across both ceramics and mural art.
Its principle is simple yet powerful: drawing by taking material away.
A layer of coloured slip is applied to the surface of the clay. By carving or scratching through it with different tools, the natural colour of the clay underneath is revealed.
Lines, shapes, patterns and textures emerge through the contrast between surface and material, colour and raw clay, positive and negative space.
Sgraffito is all about experimenting with mark-making. You can work with fine, controlled lines or instinctive, expressive cuts; play with positive and negative space; build repeating patterns; or turn an illustration into a ceramic composition.
The workshop will begin with a short introduction to the history and principles of sgraffito, supported by visual references, inspiration and handouts you can take home and use to keep exploring the technique afterwards.
Then we’ll get hands-on.
Before carving into clay, you’ll have time to develop your own visual idea, sketching different possibilities and working with Clara to understand how to translate your drawing into sgraffito.
Clara will then guide you through the process of transferring your design onto ceramics, showing you how to handle the tools, work with different marks and make the most of the contrast between slip and clay.
All ceramic pieces will be prepared in advance by Studio MUD, so you can focus entirely on drawing, carving and experimenting.
A workshop to discover a new technique, but also a few hours to slow down, focus on the gesture and get lost in the process of decorating.
The Teacher
Clara Holt is a ceramic artist based in Milan, working across ceramics and printmaking.
Her practice includes hand-painted tile murals for indoor and outdoor spaces, as well as functional wheel-thrown pieces, often decorated using the sgraffito technique.
She works by applying coloured slips to clay and carving back into the surface to reveal the natural colour of the material underneath. Through this process, she creates images, patterns and textures where drawing and material become part of the same process.
Her visual language is shaped by long-standing interests in classical literature, Greek epic poetry and Surrealism. Places, mythological figures and childhood stories move into her work, reimagined through drawing and translated onto clay.
Discover Clara’s work on her official website and follow her work in progress on Instagram.
Info
Workshop Details
- When is the workshop? Saturday, May 15, 2027
- Where? At Studio Mud, Via Alloro 66, Palermo
- How long is it? 6 hours, from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm
- Are materials included? Yes, we’ll provide everything you need.
- Lunch is included and offered to all participants.
- What should you bring? Comfortable clothes… and your curiosity! We’ll take care of everything else.
- Are places limited? Yes, the workshop is limited to 12 participants. It will go ahead with a minimum of 8 participants registered by May 9, 2027. Save your spot!
- How much does it cost? €120 per person. If you’re attending a Studio Mud intensive or weekly course, you’ll get 10% off one workshop of your choice (€108). Newsletter subscribers get 5% off their first workshop of choice (€114).
- What happens if the workshop is cancelled? If we don’t reach the minimum of 8 participants, or if the workshop cannot go ahead for any other reason, you can choose between a full refund or a voucher for the same amount to use towards another Studio Mud workshop.
