Hand Building Clay Spheres with Hive Artist Natalia Ford (8-12 years)

This workshop offers two hours of experiential learning and fun using a hand-building with clay technique.

Participants will practice the ancient way of clay pinching to create a perfect spherical form. With this method humans made the first ceramics for domestic life 17.000 years ago!

Using the principles of this technique, the participants will create a 3D hollow sphere decorated with the colourful variations arising from the clay substance. Participants will finally finish the surface of the sphere with a technique that varnishes the clay into a durable hard and gloss texture, which helps to maintain the object without firing.

These spheres can make a nice decorative addition to any living space, while the making of them offers the finest opportunity of clay exploration and hand and mind correlation challenge.

The workshop points to the remarkable event of our human hands and how this has helped humans become the dominant species on our planet. This will be provoked with open discussion around the subject as part of the conceptual approach of art, which encourages multidimensional meaning and understanding of art practice on how to think of art making beyond the object making process itself.

This workshop is suitable for children aged 8 to 12 years old.