Practice walls?

they say practice makes perfect, but how do you go about getting practice?
who's house do you practice on?
or do you get together with the brickie trainees and let them do a practice wall in your garden and then you plaster it and knock it down again?

The cupboard under the stairs used to be the apprentices favourite.

yes but as a DIYer who might like to learn for the odd wall here and there, I've not got an understairs cupboard, and no mentor to show me the tricks..
I suppose I could board out the shed and wet-plaster the coalhouse..

You'll find a hugh difference from plastering a small wall to a full size wall. The same goes for ceilings as well as i have been finding out recently. Most training centres have small ceilings and walls but the problems start when you have a full room to plaster with a 15sq/m ceiling!

Bit of ply on a frame. Use for subcoat practice and skim, then hit the back of the board with a hammer to get it to fall off when it's set. Repeat at leisure.

Or, for skim plaster, bit of plasterboard with clips around edge onto the aforementioned frame (bit like picture frame clips). When dry, pva it in the way mentioned on this forum ad infinitum and use again. Unclip when done and reverse board to practise on other side.

I've not had any training in plastering and only read about it. The main thing for me was getting the consistency right for the plaster, I now know how I work best. A pretty sloppy mix which gives me ample time to work with.

I plastered straight on to a wall that needed skimming, well it was not going to be seen as I was going to tile over it so was free practice for me.
The problem I found was I took ages putting on the first skim, flattening it out, I then learnt that you don't need to play about with it too much, 'just get it on the wall!' they said. The second skim was where I took more care. After some more practice I was quite happy with the results I was getting.

I then jumped on to a huge project, a massive ceiling! Finished it after aching all over. I then realised how easy walls were to plaster after that!