About Menu
Portfolio Menu
Service Menu
Why Menu

Earthbag house (Portland, OR)

earth bag house

Load-bearing strawbale shed (Port. OR)

straw bale house

Hand-made items online at our store

earthen hand cermics etsy shop

For Earthen Hand
Tees, Send email to: scott@earthenhand.com

Scott Howard "Let's put housing back in the hands of the people that occupy it."

Earthen Hand Workshops

About Our Workshops

Testimonials

2012 Workshop Schedule

• Earthen Building DesignMay 19 - 20    
• Cob Bottle Wall + SculptureJune 3    
• Earthen Plasters and PaintsJune 9 - 10    
• Earthbag Building BasicsJune 23 -24    
• Plastering and Earthen PaintsJune 30 - July 1    
• Earthen Floors - applying and finishingJuly 7 - 8    
• Earthbag Earthship IntensiveJuly 14 - 31    
• Masonry Heater IntensiveAugust 18 - 19, & 25 -26    
• Rocket Stove Hot TubSeptember 8 - 9    
• Earthen Paints - distance learningAnytime    

To Register, or get more information, Email us at: workshops@earthenhand.com



Get a 10% discount for each additional friend you bring, AND get 10% off on your second course.

Our courses are designed to be accessible to all skill levels. Students will learn cumulatively if they attend several workshops.

Online courses are HERE! starting with Earthen Paints.

Apprenticeship information

Take a look at the Earthen Hand You Tube Channel and our Facebookpage

This page is the best place to get our up to date workshop schedule. Also, please join our mailing list via the home page.


Earthen Building Design
May 19 - 20 — Portland, Oregon

Learn the ins and outs of designing structures that use earthen materials. This course is absolutely packed with information, including site selection, soil sampling, history, and various applications of earthen materials to achieve shelter. This theoretical course is best paired with a future hands on course.

$180

Lunch included.

Cob Bottle Wall + Sculpture
June 3 — inner SE Portland, Oregon
In this fun, hands-on class we will build bottle + jar cylinders and place them in a sculptural Cob mix. This is the most affordable and ecological way to bring colored glass into a structure, and the light coming through it is always fantastic. We will also discuss and try using Cob in several other applications as well. Cob a.k.a. adobe is sand, clay and straw mixed into a sculptable mud paste.

$80.

Lunch included.
Earthen Plasters and Paints
June 9 - 10 — Portland, Oregon

Learn to mix and apply adobe/cob plasters. Also learn recipes and application of earthen paints, known as aliz, which makes a healthy eco coating for any interior. Discover the many possibilities of earthen finishes! Hands-on instruction, lectures and slides by Scott Howard. Lunch included.
$180
Lunch Included.

Earthbag Building Basics
June 23 -24 — Seattle, Washington
Learn to build with Earthbags, aka super-adobe, which is a type of rammed earth. We will be building a garden wall at the permaculture project called the Seattle Homestead. This durable and versatile building technique makes structures that can be plastered with adobe/cob, cement, or lime for a variety of finished styles. We will address plasters only briefly in this workshop. Experience wall construction hands-on and then hear lecture with slides about the many possibilities of this construction technique.

$180.

Lunch included.
Plastering and Earthen Paints
June 30 - July 1 — Sequim, Washington
Big Barn Farm hosts its second year of Earthen Hand workshops! Come see our earthbag earthship in process and participate. Learn to mix and apply plasters of adobe/cob, cement, and lime. Also learn recipes and application of earthen paints, known as aliz, which makes a healthy eco coating for any interior. Hands-on instruction, lectures and slides by Scott Howard and crew.

$180.

Lunch included. Camping onsite.
Earthen Floors - applying and finishing
July 7 - 8 — Sequim, Washington
Learn how to mix and lay Cob/earthen floors. We will cover how to cure and finish these floors as well. Come see our earthbag home in process at Big Barn Farm. Hands-on and lecture instruction by Scott Howard and associates.

$180.

Lunch included. Camping onsite.
Earthbag Earthship Intensive
July 14 - 31 — San Luis, Colorado

Eighteen days of intensive learning at a remote site in Southern Colorado. We will build a Earthbag Earthship home for Tetsuko, a friend and buddhist practitioner who is quadriplegic. Experience an amazing natural setting! A stream with resident beavers runs by the site. Learn all the details of construction with lectures, slides, and hands on classes. You will come away from this experience ready to build your own home with little further guidance required.
$1500

Masonry Heater Intensive
August 18 - 19, & 25 -26 — Sequim, Washington

Organized and lead by Scott Howard, with special guest teachers Sun Ray Kelley and Jason Temple. This workshop will be extremely rich in cutting edge information. Students will learn the science of fire and wood burning. Assemble a rocket stove masonry heater that will heat radiant floors, water, air, provide options for cooking, and heat an adjacent greenhouse. Ideally, students can attend both weekends to get the full experience.
$200 per weekend, $350 for both

Rocket Stove Hot Tub
September 8 - 9 — Portland, Oregon

In this one-of-a-kind class, learn to assemble a simple rocket stove which will transfer heat to a tub of water via metal tube coiled within the firebox. A simple, efficient, portable, and inexpensive design that you can assemble at home with this knowledge.
$180

Earthen Paints - distance learning
Anytime — Your house
Our newest type of course allows you to study home made Earthen Paints and applications whenever you have time from your computer via our distance learning videos. These techniques are very accessible and easy to learn with this kind of guidance. Earthen Paints have been used for thousands of years to beautify human dwellings, and can produce a wide variety of colors and textures. They are non-toxic, ecological, and not expensive to make.

$50

Includes email support. Registration is anytime and ongoing. Email us at workshops@earthenhand.com to begin.
See photos of an Earthbag house workshop series.

About Earthen Hand Workshops

A growing number of people are interested in natural building, earthen building, and permaculture techniques. Our workshops seek to empower people with information and hands-on instruction for a self-reliant, ecological lifestyle.

We are dedicated to educating people about ecological building, and simple alternative technologies. Workshops offered focus on skills and intuition that allow a builder to create within a natural harmony. Each day of a workshop includes hands-on training, discussion, and lecture. We hope that anyone who attends our workshops will continue to learn and teach technologies of global self-empowerment.

Potential workshop hosts can contact us by email at: workshops@earthenhand.com. Our ideal workshop is cooperatively organized, delivering quality education while completing a useful structure at an affordable price for everyone.

Our local workshops provide:

  • Hands-on learning in earthen building techniques
  • Useful and beautiful structures that cooperate with their surrounding landscape
  • Opportunities to learn skills for free—Public workshops offered annually through Portland's Village Building Convergence event

Our international workshops:

  • Create a positive cross-cultural exchange
  • Train participants in earthen building techniques
  • Provide international communities with needed structures that cooperate with their surroundings
  • Draw funds and human energy to places where the resources are more needed
Earthbag dome workshop in Thailand, 2004 Earthbag dome workshop in Thailand, 2004

Testimonials

"Scott was an excellent teacher, and super patient with all of us newbies. Totally worth the flight from Charlotte, and I recommend this style of learning very highly!"
— Luke

"I loved creating a structure by hand with our class. It was fun to get dirty and work hard with our amazing crew and teachers. We learned a specific method of natural building, but were also introduced to many ways of sculpting earthen materials and living in harmony with nature."
— Skylark

"Thanks for the great cob workshop! It was great to meet other people who are into cob and take the first step towards making my own cob house a reality."
— Katie

Back to top
Contents of this entire site © 2012 Earthen Hand. All Rights Reserved. To inquire about permissions, please contact: scott (at) earthenhand.com