Let everyone get their hands dirty at the potter's wheel

” I’d like to make a dolphin with two holes on its back so it can spit out water ,” says a smiling brunette. Obviously, it’s more of a whale than a dolphin, but anything is possible in pottery!

As for me, I’d set my sights on a horse or a unicorn… Well, with a bit of disorganized modeling, I ended up with a turtle. That said, it’s a very pretty turtle with a hat.

During this workshop, I was in the company of Léna, Inès, Loé and Nyla.

The basis is quite simple. You start with earth, moistened with water, to create a shape. But it gets more complicated once you’ve got to make it into a shape that looks like it. Potter’s work is very meticulous. It simply depends on both hands. I kneaded this ball of clay for a long time. And then it’s a bit like drawing, you don’t know where to start.

Depending on the shape I want to give my pottery, I have to approach it differently. I’d assumed that to make an animal shape, I’d have to make a ball. Instead, I had to crush it and then use it to wrap a ball of newspaper around it.

The workshops are with Didier and Roxane, who accompanies him. I’m quite amazed at what I can produce, given that the last time I made pottery I was less than ten years old. It took me a good 30 minutes of modelling to get the shape of my turtle right.

To make a turtle, I didn’t need any materials. But to make cup handles, for example, you can add water to the clay and stretch it with a roller.

In the end, my turtle looks more like a big cat than anything else.

This is a very fun pottery workshop for children. They can handle and throw the clay as they like, and you can’t make any mistakes until it’s fired, because it’s malleable. And that’s the great thing about pottery.

You feel at once that you’re letting yourself go in the creation of a shape, because you know that there’s always a way to make up for it.