A three day course designed specifically for anyone wanting to work with clay for the first time. This course led by our regular class pottery tutor Verran Townsend and you will have a chance to both handbill and throw on the wheel.

In this immersive weekend pottery course you will work in stoneware and focus on simple forms thrown on the wheel or made from slabs, moulds and coils. You’ll then spend time decorating using coloured slips and drawn lines. This is an ideal course if you want to slow down and pay attention to the forms you are making, and to be introduced to, or develop, your skills in applying and experimenting with coloured slips and the use of oxides.

Join artist printmaker Mary Bowen on an exciting journey into creative printmaking, responding to our sense of place in the landscape. For those who are curious about the process of printmaking, this course will guide you through how it can be used as a vehicle for expanding your creative practice, using many techniques that can be recreated at home.

Join David on an exciting voyage through the expressive handling of paint and materials, mark making and collage.

He will guide you through the process of translating the shapes, textures, feelings and moods of the landscape in paint.

Aimed at beginners yet flexible for all levels of ability, this course introduces and guides you into different ways of seeing by exploring drawing techniques and mixed materials before diving into the world of colour.

Boost your throwing skills wtih an immersive course. This three day course is a chance to spend a long weekend dedicated to the wheel, supported by a professional potter with production throwing expense who will demo and actively teach you throughout the weekend. teaching time totals 16.5 hours, comparable to a 7 week 2 hr evening class crammed into one glorious weekend.

Join David on an exciting voyage through the expressive handling of paint and materials, mark making and collage.

He will guide you through the process of translating the shapes, textures, feelings and moods of the landscape in paint.

An experimental intuitive painting course working with acrylics and mixed media, this course is suitable for painters of all abilities. It will be particularly useful if you have some painting experience and want to experiment with abstraction and how you use colour, or if you have a more experience but you want to free up from your current style and spend some time experimenting with a different approach.

This is a three day course with internationally recognised and celebrated professional potter Anna Lambert. Learn how to develop designs for simple slab built ceramic platters and tiles. You will discover ways to build complex and layered surfaces with tonal and coloured slips, using combinations of surface pattern techniques.

You'll start with the rolling of slabs for plates and test pieces. We will then spend time around Coombe Farm, drawing and gathering ideas for the workshop.

Join Sarah on this course and have guidance to the limitless and varied mark making opportunities possible within her methods.

Achieve energetic work in the studio as an interpretation of sketches, words and information gathered outside in the stunning South Devon landscape. Sarah will demonstrate regularly, and offer frequent individual tuition

This 3 day course will begin by drawing from a still life looking at colour and composition, drawing upon the plants and flowers that surround Coombe. Through a series of exercises, you will build on experimentation and observation before planning and painting a diptych on canvas, capturing the personality of your chosen flower(s). This course is ideal if you are looking to build on your colour theory and immerse yourself in the intimate world of flowers and the myriad of patterns and colours in the natural world.

A practical hands on approach to making glazes and exploiting a myriad of special effects in glazes from Lava to Oil Spot, expertly tutored by the author of numerous books on Glazing - Linda Bloomfield.

During the course you will spend the first day making glaze tests, then the next day learning about glaze chemistry and analysing the results.

This course is ideally suited to anyone that has some experience of glazing pots and wants to deepen their understanding and do some experimentation. 

A bold approach to sketchbook painting is a fresh and vibrant course with accomplished painter and printmaker Tessa Pearson. You will spend time drawing the surrounding gardens and hedgerows using a variety of mixed media including resists, pastels, watercolour, inks and crayons to create lively spontaneous sketchbook studies which we will then translate into more considered paintings in the studio, capturing the energy and characteristics of the direct observation.

An experimental immersive three day drawing course, great for anyone starting out drawing or for those that want to free up their mark making and experiment with new techniques and materials. Residential and non-residential places available for those living or staying near to Coombe.

We are delighted that master potter Tim Andrews joins us again in 2024. Tim is known internationally for his distinctive raku pottery and for his book ‘Raku‘* a comprehensive overview of raku, covering the history, clay types and firing of raku, as well as the glazes, techniques and reduction processes. Tim makes individual work, black and white with linear decoration, or burnished muted coloured slips. The pieces are usually thrown, although some work is hand-built.

This 4 day course will focus on methods to achieve vibrant and expressive mark making in the landscape using soft pastel as the primary medium in a mixed media process. Sarah Bee PS has been a member of The Pastel Society, and part of the Federation of British Artists, for almost 20 years.

During this time she has made it her mission to lift pastel painting from the doldrums of a long held dull and traditional reputation into the deserved spotlight of inspiring contemporary art.

This inspiring and enjoyable drawing & painting course for beginners is for people who have always wanted to draw and paint but just don’t know where to start or want to develop their work.

If you are familiar with the fear of the blank page, have the feeling that you can’t draw, or you want to expand your skills, this course is suitable for you.

We are thrilled to be adding a new pottery course at Coombe in 2021 with the hugely talented potter Adam Frew. We have long admired the work of Adam who makes clean, simple forms on wheel. Based in rural Northern Ireland Adam works in porcelain, creating thrown functional and large one-off pots

An experimental intuitive painting course working with acrylics and mixed media, this course is suitable for painters of all abilities. It will be particularly useful if you have some painting experience and want to experiment with abstraction and how you use colour, or if you have a more experience but you want to free up from your current style and spend some time experimenting with a different approach.

In this immersive weekend pottery course you will work in stoneware and focus on simple forms thrown on the wheel or made from slabs, moulds and coils. You’ll then spend time decorating using coloured slips and drawn lines. This is an ideal course if you want to slow down and pay attention to the forms you are making, and to be introduced to, or develop, your skills in applying and experimenting with coloured slips and the use of oxides.

This inspiring and enjoyable drawing & painting course for improvers is for those that have taken part in beginners courses and want to progress their work.

Francine Lawrence and Susi Hoyle have taught over 2000 people to draw and given them the confidence to keep drawing.

I’m thrilled to announce Rachel Wood as a new tutor for 2025. This course aims to refresh, revitalise and deepen your connection with the hand building techniques of pinching and coiling. Using an experimental approach, you will be able to gain confidence, develop competent skills and befriend your clay.

You will learn and apply surface decoration and mark making techniques to add vitality and life to your work, so that the natural qualities of the clay, and the experience of being at Coombe come shining through.

We are delighted to be welcoming back to Coombe the utterly brilliant and talented Sabine Nemet. Sabine will be teaching a five day throwing course, focusing on the shapes and forms she makes and is known for.

We created this new course in 2023 offering tutored sessions in both outdoor swimming and pottery led by hugely talented and experienced potters Laurel Keeley and Jodie Crook Giles and Outdoor Swimming Society Director Kari Furre. It was a huge success so its back for 2024.

This is an immersive five day intensive pottery residential with the internationally recognised potter Anna Lambert. Anna builds her work from a white earthenware mixed clay, using a variety of handbuilding techniques.

In this course Tessa will introduce you to the fabulous techniques for making monoprints using a silkscreen. This very experimental and unpredictable printmaking method uses no prepared matrix and each print is basically a one off painting created from layers of handpainted and drawn imagery pulled through a screen . Tessa will share her own techniques and we will also explore additional elements of drawn marks and collage with cut stencils. Imagery will be drawn from sketchbook explorations , and time will be spent considering colour and composition. This course is suitable for all abilities with a sense of adventure, prepared to embrace the unexpected!

Join David on an exciting voyage through the expressive handling of paint and materials, mark making and collage.

He will guide you through the process of translating the shapes, textures, feelings and moods of the landscape in paint.

An intermediate pottery throwing course focusing on all the elements of making a teapot and cups. Tim has taught around the world for over thirty years - workshops, lecturing, FE & HE.

He trained originally with David Leach and at Dartington. Tim exhibits internationally - most recently in Japan, China and Australia.

During this immersive workshop, you will be introduced to the traditional Japanese art of water-based woodblock printmaking.

Mokuhanga is perfect for anyone interested in a non-toxic, water-based, table-top printmaking technique.

Dylan Bowen. Making and decorating dynamic slip decorated earthenware - During this course Dylan will demonstrate and teach various techniques based on his own work.