Seven days in Italy, with your hands in clay.
A ceramics workshop on a flower farm in the Bergamo countryside, with Bianca Pintan.
THE INVITATION
Imagine waking up in the Italian countryside with nowhere to be but the studio.
For seven days you’ll make, colour and create with your own hands, learning the techniques I’ve spent years developing and have taught to more than 2,000 students around the world. Between sessions there’s long lunches at the farm, aperitivo as the sun goes down, and the kind of conversations that only happen when you step out of your life for a while.
You’ll leave with pieces you made yourself, a new way of seeing colour, and the knowledge to keep creating once you’re home.
This is not a holiday with a class attached. It’s a week to come back to yourself.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN
The Rolling Pin Method
My signature way of creating sculptural forms using just your hands and a rolling pin. No wheel needed. It’s simple to learn, endlessly expressive, and it opens the door to shapes that feel like art from your very first piece.
Colour Secrets
One “mother recipe” that unlocks almost any colour you can imagine. You’ll learn to mix your own colours from scratch using pure pigments, so your work looks like no one else’s.
Surface and decoration
My newest explorations in layering colour, with watercolour, chalk and more. This is where your pieces become truly yours.
WHO THIS IS FOR
This week is for you if:
You’ve always wanted to work with clay and are ready to finally begin
You already make, and you’re craving a fresh direction and new techniques
You want to invest in yourself in a way you’ll remember for the rest of your life
You love beautiful food, good company and slow mornings in the countryside
All levels are welcome, including complete beginners. I’ve taught beginners and ceramics teachers at the same table, and everyone leaves inspired.
YOUR WEEK IN BERGAMO
Day 1 · Monday
Welcome to the farm. An introduction to the Rolling Pin Method, starting with the cylinder and simple forms to really learn the technique. In the evening, a welcome dinner together at the farm.
Day 2 · Tuesday
Bigger forms. Slab coils, rainbow slabs and your first carving. You’ll finish the pieces you’ll take home, and they’ll dry in the Italian sun.
Day 3 · Wednesday
While your pieces are in their first firing, we dive into Colour Secrets: the mother recipe and mixing your own colours from scratch. In the evening, an optional trip to the old town of Bergamo or to Milan.
Day 4 · Thursday
Colour play. Testing, layering and seeing how colour behaves on carved and smooth surfaces.
Day 5 · Friday
Decoration day. A full day bringing colour to your fired pieces, from Colour Secrets to my newest surface techniques. Your pieces then go into the kiln for their final firing.
Day 6 · Saturday
A free day while the kiln works its magic. Explore Milan or Lake Garda by train, or simply slow down and enjoy the countryside.
Day 7 · Sunday
A flower workshop on the farm, the kiln opening (the best moment of the week), and a goodbye brunch together.
I’ll be demonstrating throughout the week, so you can watch pieces come to life from start to finish.
A DAY AT THE FARM
Workshops run from 9.30am to 4pm, with a daily pickup and drop-off from the hotel.
At lunch we stop for an hour to share a freshly prepared meal at the farm. Each workshop day ends with an Italian aperitivo, a drink or a gelato.
The studio sits on a working flower farm near Treviglio, in the countryside just outside Bergamo, and you’re welcome to wander through it.
WHAT’S INCLUDED
Seven days of teaching and demonstrations with Bianca
All clay, materials and colours
Three finished pieces, coloured and fired using Colour Secrets
Your colour recipes, to keep creating at home
A gift bag to take home: your own rolling pin, a trimming tool, colour stains and a flower kenzan
Freshly prepared lunches every workshop day
A welcome dinner and a goodbye brunch at the farm
A daily Italian aperitivo, drinks or gelato
The Sunday flower workshop
Daily pickup and drop-off between the hotel and the studio
Packing materials to bring your pieces home safely
A local guide to the area, with our favourite bars and restaurants, sent before you arrive
YOUR INVESTMENT
Workshop: €1,950
[Approx. AUD $X / USD $X. Final amount is charged in [currency] at checkout.]
Accommodation (optional add-on), 7 nights, private room:
Hotel Marelet: €770
Hotel San Martino: €840
Check-in is the afternoon before the workshop, and checkout is on the final day. You’re also welcome to book your own stay, arrive early or stay longer. If you stay elsewhere, getting to and from the studio is your own arrangement.
Payment plans are available. A deposit of [€X] secures your place, with the balance due by [date].
[Reserve your place]
It looks complicated.
It isn't.
It just took me a hundred broken pieces to find out.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY…
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“It’s nothing like glaze recipes. Colour started to feel intuitive, repeatable, and alive in my work.”
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“I finally understood bold colour in ceramics — not as recipes to follow, but as something I could actually work with and trust.”
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“It completely shifted my ceramic practice. I stopped guessing and started understanding what was actually happening with colour.”
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“I can’t believe how long I worked without this. It changed the way I think about colour and surface entirely.”
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“Colour stopped feeling like trial and error. I finally understood how to work with it in ceramics, rather than hoping for the best.”
Taught to students in 60+ countries. A true matte, opaque colour method, in any shade, the ceramics community said couldn't be done. It photographs beautifully, and it's even better in person.
MY STORY
I started my ceramics journey already wanting a blue that did not exist.
I bought every premixed glaze, every powder, tried underglazes, tested and tested, looking for a matte, bold blue that wasn't flat or muted. None of it worked, matte glazes are often translucent, they don't fully cover the surface, and the colour I wanted needed to be opaque, saturated, unmistakably bold. Eventually I stopped trying to force it and went back to raw clay, working only in black and white while I figured out what I actually wanted.
Then, after I gave birth to my son, I saw it. A blue vase, exactly as I'd always imagined it, clear as anything in my mind. I decided I would make it real.
I started testing. Mixing pigment directly into clay. Wedging it in. Mixing concentrated pigment into water and applying it to the piece in different ways, over and over, through years of failed tests and failed applications, until I found my formula.
That blue was the catalyst, the thing that drove me to develop the technique in the first place. But once I had the formula, I realised it wasn't really about blue at all. It worked as a method. The same process, the same recipe, adapted to any colour I wanted, bold red, saturated yellow, deep green, whatever I was after. It took years to refine, the recipe, the application, the many different ways the same technique could be used across every colour. And it's still evolving. I'm still discovering things about it today.