Practical Glaze Chemistry
Where theory meets practice!
Welcome to my glaze courses
Have you ever found yourself endlessly testing glazes with little or no result?
Or did you not even know were to start?
All too often we find ourselves with a promising looking glaze but heaps of questions:
Is the glaze appropriate for dinnerware and will it leach?
Will the glaze work with your materials if the recipe originated from the other side of the globe?
Or what to do if you don’t have all the exact materials?
And what do all these materials do anyway?!?
Come join and explore what makes glazes tick! Learn what it means for a glaze to be good, stable, and durable. Focus your glaze exploration towards more successful results and confidence in identifying and dealing with issues. With the help of glazy.org, chemistry for potters has never been easier!
Glaze chemistry has become one of my passions that I would love to share with you! I am the Moderator on the Facebook group Understanding Glazes with Sue with now over 27,000 members(!!!) and love to share, teach, and demystify bits of this wondrous world of glazes. I look forward to taking you on a journey into the theory behind glazes and how we can make it practical. And while theory and chemistry may look intimidating at times, the courses are intended to deal with the subject in a way that matches how potters and clay-artists think.
Course 1Fundamentals of
Practical Glaze Chemistry
This 6 week course is indented for both potters who are wanting to start getting into mixing their own glazes, as well as those who already have some basic knowledge and experience.
We will explore ways of understanding glazes and how to put theory into practice, finalising with testing glazes and a review of the results.
After this course you will:
be able to analyse glazes using glazy.org
know what the various materials do in a glaze
think of 5,000,000 materials as just a source of 12 compounds
understand how to adjust for local materials with confidence
have explored colour and texture in a glaze
walk away with a bunch of new tested recipes and heaps of new knowledge!
The cost of the course is $380 and includes materials and test firing. You do need to bring your own personal protective equipment and prepare test tiles (though arrangements can be made where necessary).
For enquiries and announcement of dates, send me a message and add your name to the list!
Course 2Advancing towards
Your Perfect Glaze
This 6 week course is indented for potters who have taken the course Fundamentals of Practical Glaze Chemistry, or already have a thorough understanding of the UMF and materials in glazes.
We will explore the various ways to control your glazes, how to fine tune for specific effects, and finish with investigating new strategies for testing glazes and reviewing the results.
After this course you will:
be capable of manipulating your glazes through their chemistry
be able to control the glaze application
understand how to achieve special effects
know how to mitigate various glaze defects
have new strategies to efficiently test glaze chemistries
walk away with a bunch of new tested recipes and heaps of new knowledge!
The cost of the course is $380 and includes materials and test firing. You do need to bring your own personal protective equipment and prepare test tiles (though arrangements can be made where necessary).
For enquiries and announcement of dates, add your email to the list above!
Glaze course testimonials
Shelley Blondheim
“We didn't just learn how to mix glazes we learnt the chemistry behind the glazes, now we understand how a glaze will react. This makes the whole process so much more productive. Ronald is a born teacher. I would never hesitate to take any course he was teaching.”
Carlene Akester
“I got soooo much more from it than I expected.”
Clive Tucker
“I have many years experience of mixing and testing glazes. After the course, I can now predict how the glaze will look and feel, before I make it!! I understand how glazes work a lot better than ever before.”
Megan Tarris
“Gained a ton of knowledge in a short period, really enjoyed the small size class, personalized testing element, and review party.”
For enquiries and announcement of dates, add your email to the list by clicking the button below!
PREREQUISITE: Course 1+2 – Fundamentals of Practical Glaze Chemistry: 10-week course
incl. glaze materials, and firing
In this 10-week course we will explore glazes that go beyond a stable and durable glass. We will look at the various mechanisms through which we can create rich surfaces, and how we can use glazy.org and glaze chemistry to find out how these glazes work, and what their limitations are.
The course is structured in three cycles of 3 weeks each (and a final week for a review) — in the first two weeks of each cycle we will explore new glaze types and come up with appropriate testing strategies, and in the third week we will mix up the actual tests. We will explore crawl glazes, wood ash effects, metallic or mirror surfaces, silicon carbide in faux reduction and crater/lava glazes, and a little intro to crystalline type glazes (though the final list can be adapted based on requests). All in all it will be a exciting exploration of more experimental glaze effects and reactive surfaces, so sign up and have some glaze fun!
As the course builds on understanding the fundamentals of glaze chemistry, as well the testing strategies you’ll have learned in the Course 1+2 – Fundamentals of Practical Glaze Chemistry: 10-week course, this is a prerequisite to taking this course!