In 2005 Clive Hicks-Jenkins began working with the potter Pip Koppel at her Lletycaws Pottery near Aberystwyth. What started as a brief project to decorate some dinner plates Koppel had made for him turned into a nine-month project during which the two collaborated closely. Koppel worked at the wheel throwing earthenware plates, bowls and jugs which Hicks-Jenkins painted and slip trailed. Later she threw forms to his specification which he assembled and modelled into a wide range of vessels and objects, including salt-kits and candlesticks. He also began modelling figures of animals and mythical creatures, and slab-building toy theatres to serve as lanterns and night-lights. He says:

'I'll never be a ceramicist, but this collaboration has been richly rewarding. I've long used china vessels and figurines as subject matter for still-life painting, and the body of work produced in Lletycaws will fuel my compositions for a long time to come. All painters must ponder on the nature of three-dimensionality, even if they don't seem to represent the illusion of it in their work. The experience of making objects, as opposed to my usual discipline of drawing and painting them, has changed my way of thinking about the world, and back at my easel I begin to see where this voyage of discovery has carried me.'