Ceramic Hare Sculptures with Mark Bradley

9.30am to 4.30pm ish

New for 2025 we're really pleased to welcome Mark and this exciting ceramic Hare workshop to the Quirky Programme.

Enjoy a busy and absorbing day being guided through the many processes involved in creating these amazing Hares. You can choose whether your Hare is moon gazing with ears back, or positioned up, ears alert listening for danger. Each Hare will be unique, with its own quirks and personality - and towards the end of the class you can choose to create a smoother finish for it, or more textured as in the main photo - or any permutation in between. The choice is yours.

Mark will provide all the equipment and materials needed to create your lovely sculpture in just one day - you only need to bring along shirt or apron to protect your clothes and your materials money below. Once finish the Hares will be carefully transported back to Mark studio to be slowly air dried. After a few weeks they will be ready for bisque firing, and then Mark will apply - if you wish - the various oxides to highlight the ears and tails particularly, before firing a second time.

The colouring is with oxides, students can choose to skip this stage if they wish, and Mark can return them either bisque, or fired twice, which turns the clay into stoneware.

The Hares will hopefully be ready for collection back at Greystoke within 3 to 4 weeks of the class. Sometimes, in damp conditions, this can take take longer.

This course will usually take place in the ground floor Squirrel Barn with three steps up from the gravel driveway.

This class is suitable for every standard of student from beginners upwards. The Hares are frostproof and suitable for the garden.

* NOTE : As fans of 'Pottery Throwdown' know well - putting anything into the hands of the 'kiln gods' is a risk. They're an unpredictable lot, and sometimes things go wrong and carefully sculpted pieces can be damaged with small cracks appearing during the firing process. Or badly wrong even - very occasionally pieces may even explode! If breakages occur, repairs will of course be attempted. Although rare, students should understand this is 'part and parcel' of working with Ceramics and kilns, and there is no guarantee their workshop piece will turn out perfect or in tact.

Fri 13 Nov 26 ~ Fri 5th March '27 ~ Sat 17th April '27 ~ Wed 21 July '27

Typically this course runs with around 6-7 students.

About the Artist : Mark is a watercolour artist, and paints mainly landscapes due to living in Cumbria and spending time in Scotland. He tends to be representational, but aspire to being impressionistic. Mark also throw pots and creates animal and bird sculptures, and watercolour cards, all of which are for sale at Interlude ceramics at Brougham Hall, near Penrith. Also at Viridian Gallery in Keswick.