Online Classes and Workshops with Sue

The Art of Glaze Chemistry

Learn how to use glaze calculation software to analyze and adjust your glaze recipes so you can adjust melting temperature, change surfaces between matte, satin and glossy, and fix glaze fit issues like crazing/shivering/dunting.

Explore how base glaze composition affects colourants so you can design the unique glaze palette you've been dreaming about.

This is a 9-week program that takes a deep dive into the science behind how glazes are composed so you can develop the best glazes for your work. No previous chemistry knowledge required.

Registration is now closed until Spring 2023.

Join the Waitlist

Mastering Glaze Consistency

A 4-week, online program that will teach you how to get the best glaze results possible with your existing glazes, and repeat those results from firing to firing.

Learn my system for measuring specific gravity, flocculating and/or deflocculating your glazes to improve application and fix many glaze flaws like running, crawling, glazes turning out the wrong colour, cloudy clears etc.

Registration currently closed until Feb 2023.

Join the Waitlist

Glaze Mixing Essentials

Learn how to mix your own glazes from scratch and do a Colour Run by testing a base glaze with multiple colourants in this online workshop.

Glaze mixing is a foundational skill that will enhance your creative potential, save you money and increase your understanding of the materials you're working with.

You get instant access to the workshop, plus a live Q&A session over Zoom each month for 3 months.

Registration is currently closed until early 2023.

Join the Waitlist

Free Guide

Do you have these glaze challenges?

You don't know how much water to add to your glazes
You get different results every firing
Your glazes aren't turning out as expected
You can't seem to keep your glaze thickness consistent

Grab my FREE GUIDE

You'll start understanding your glaze results better when you measure specific gravity. It just takes a few simple steps to calculate the water content of your glazes and then it's easy to keep them consistent. No more guessing!

Consistent water content = consistent application thickness = consistent results.

Send me the guide

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Sue’s Ceramics Blog

Articles and videos about clay, glazes and studio tips, written by Sue McLeod

Glazy Demo – Adding Recipes and More

Do you use Glazy.org to store/share your glaze recipes? If you’re just hearing about Glazy for the first time, you should definitely go check it out. It’s a ceramics recipe website that allows you to store recipes with photos, share them with the community and analyze the chemistry/UMF of your glazes, all in one place.

Why Specific Gravity Isn’t Listed on Glaze Recipes

If you’ve been glazing for any length of time, you may have heard about the importance of measuring the specific gravity of your glazes and you may have found yourself wondering: “If it’s so important to measure specific gravity, why aren’t specific gravity values published on glaze recipes?”

5 Reasons Why Your Large Batch of Glaze Doesn’t Match Your Test Batch

Has this ever happened to you? You mix up a test batch of a new glaze, dip a test tile and you like the result, so you mix up a large bucket, dip a test tile and your results look nothing like your test batch?

A Potter With a Paycheque?

This post is based on an email I sent out this past Fall about my journey from a struggling studio potter to starting my dream job as a studio technician to reluctantly growing out of that position and quitting my job in order to teach online classes full time.

A Clay Reclaim Process Using a Pugmill/Clay Mixer

If you run a community studio or your personal studio is high production, you probably have a lot of clay scraps to deal with. This article will describe the clay reclaim process we use at the very busy pottery studio where I worked as technician for 6 years.

How to Make a Cone Pack

In this post, you’ll learn how to make a cone pack using pyrometric witness cones set into a coil of clay. Cones are important for measuring the heatwork of your firings.

Commercial Glazes vs Mixing Your Own – A Cost Comparison

This post will give you an idea about the differences between commercial glazes and mixing your own from cratch.

Troubleshooting Commercial Underglazes

Have you experienced issues with commercial underglazes? Participate in my underglaze research project and help me find solutions for underglaze firing defects.

99 Cone 6 Glazes You Can Try

Have you been looking for new glazes to add to your glaze palette? If so, I have 99 different cone 6 glazes you can try. That probably sounds like a lot to look through, but it’s really just 9 base glaze recipes plus 10 colour variations each.

The Air Bubble Myth

There’s a common belief in ceramics that leaving pockets of air in your clay, either due to insufficient wedging or by creating an enclosed form, leads to explosions in the kiln. The belief is often communicated in these ways: “Poorly wedged clay containing air bubbles will explode…”

What Glazes Can You Make with Limited Materials?

When you start looking for glaze recipes and have a limited number of materials on hand, you may find that you have almost (but not quite) all the materials for a million glaze recipes, but you can’t find a recipe that only uses the materials you currently have.

How to Measure Specific Gravity – Clay Week 2020

Here's a live demo of how to measure the specific gravity of your glazes so you can have more consistent results. Measuring specific gravity is a way to calculate and control the water content of...

12 Tips for Managing Glazes at a Busy Pottery Studio

Glaze Management 101. It’s a lot of work to run a school or community pottery studio. There are a lot of moving parts to look after. I’ve been a studio technician for 5 years now and it’s a very busy and rewarding job. As the technician, I’m taking care of all the behind the scenes…

How to Fix a Hard-Panned Glaze with Epsom Salts

Have you ever had a glaze settle into a rock hard layer on the bottom of your glaze bucket? It’s impossible to mix and even if you do get it mixed, it just settles out again. This annoying phenomenon is called “hard-panning” and it often happens to glazes that don’t have enough…

How the Water in Your Glaze is Affecting Your Results

Does any of this sound familiar? You unload a piece from the kiln and the glaze turned out perfectly! So you glaze more pieces with the same glaze combination, fire them, and they turn out completely different… OR… You mix a small test batch of a glaze and LOVE how it looks…

A Week in the Life of a Ceramics Studio Technician

What Does a Ceramics Studio Technician Do? Since 2015, I’ve been a ceramics studio technician at a community pottery studio. We run 14 classes per week for both adults and children. We also have an open studio drop-in program where 60 registered members can…

How to Make a Saturated Epsom Salt Solution to Flocculate your Glazes

Flocculate… What Does That Even Mean? You may have heard this term “flocculate” in reference to glazes and thought it was a funny word but you’ve never really known what it means. Or you may have been told what it means several times and still…

Getting Clarity with Clear Glazes

There’s nothing worse than a cloudy clear glaze muddying up your beautiful slip design, screen printed images or coloured clay. How can we make sure our clear glaze is always clear and prevent it from going cloudy? In this article, I’ll explain some of the factors that affect the…

What to Keep Track of in Your Glaze Journal

How Magic Becomes Science. Have you ever unloaded a BEAUTIFUL piece from the kiln and thought, “Gee, I wish I could remember how I did that”? A big part of glaze testing and advancing your understanding of glazes is record keeping. Whether you’re dipping test tiles or…

Different Styles of Test Tiles You Can Make for Glaze Testing

The word “test tile” can refer to any shape of clay that’s used to test glazes, slips, underglazes, engobes etc. Test tiles can be any shape you wish and can be made in a variety of ways. In this post, I’ll share lots of different examples of ways you can…

15 Tips to Get Started with Glaze Testing

I find ceramic glazes to be absolutely fascinating. I had no idea when I started working with clay that glazes would become the main focus of my life. Glazing was always an afterthought and I basically ruined most of my pieces by glazing them…

How to Calibrate Your Kiln Sitter for Accurate Firings

If you’re anything like me, then your first kiln wasn’t or isn’t going to be the digital programmable kind. Many of us start out with a manual kiln that we got second hand. I have 4 different sized kilns in my home studio and none of them are digital or programmable.

A Low Tech System for Recycling Clay Scraps

As clay artists, we’re so lucky that we can reduce the amount of waste we produce by reclaiming or recycling our unfired clay. When we make something that cracks, warps or doesn’t look how we wanted it to, we can reclaim our clay, bringing it back to its original state so…

How to Make a Good Kiln Wash to Protect Your Kiln Shelves

Kiln wash is a material that you can paint onto your kiln shelves. It looks very similar to a glaze when being applied. It acts as a barrier to prevent unexpected glaze runs or drips from ruining your shelves. Kiln shelves are made of a hard material that is similar to…

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