In summer 2013 I was privileged to take a ceramics class taught by Prof. Turker Ozdogan.  He has a great facility at GWU.  The class introduced pinching, coiling and soft and hard slab techniques.  Key words about ceramics are: wall thickness.  Working in three dimensions is very challenging; a piece can look good from some angles but not others.  Careful attention must be also be paid to glazing as a bad glazing job can ruin a piece.  Low firing offers a much broader range of colors, while high fired pieces have a more earthy palette.  I learned just enough ceramics to find out that this is a very interesting field.