Online Classes and Workshops with Sue
Classes with yellow backgrounds are free!
What's Your Next Step on the Glaze Journey?
- You know you want to learn more about glazes
- You're not familiar with my 3 glaze courses
- You're wondering which glaze course would be the next best step for where you're at on your glaze journey
You can read more about each course by clicking the links below. I hope to see you in one of my glaze courses soon!
Thinking about mixing your own glazes? Feeling nervous to take the plunge?
In this FREE CLASS, you'll learn what's involved, what you'll need, and how to set up your studio for glaze mixing success.
Join Sue McLeod for a behind-the-scenes look inside her glaze mixing lab and discover:
✅ What tools, equipment, and safety gear you’ll need to start mixing your own glazes from scratch
🧰 How to set up your studio for safe, efficient, and organized glaze mixing
💡 Whether mixing your own glazes is the right next step for you — including the benefits, costs, and creative opportunities it brings
If you're considering making the switch to mixing your own glazes, this class will give you the clarity and confidence to take the leap.
Price: FREE!
Glaze Mixing Essentials
Create your own unique palette of custom glazes by learning to mix glazes from scratch in this online course.
Glaze mixing is a foundational skill for any serious potter who wants to make pots that have their own signature style. By the end of this class, you'll know how to safely mix and alter the colour of any glaze recipe, for any temperature. You don't need a large studio or any scientific background to take this next important step in your glaze journey.
You'll get instant, lifetime access to the course when you register, plus an invitation to my monthly membership - The Glaze Lab - for extra support.
Price: $197 USD
What Do the Glaze Materials Do? workshop
This workshop will teach you the role and function of your glaze materials. This is an intro to glaze chemistry, which opens up a whole world of ceramic possibilities like substituting materials and developing your own glaze recipes.
If you mix your own glazes but have no idea why each material is included in the recipe, don't you think it's time to learn? Knowledge is empowering. Even if you think it will be too complicated, I have a way of explaining these things that makes it simple to understand.
90 Days Access.
Price: $57 USD
Mastering Glaze Consistency
Learn how to get the best glaze results possible with your existing glazes, and repeat those results from firing to firing in this online course.
My step-by-step testing system will help you improve the consistency of your glaze application and results, and will fix many glaze flaws like running, crawling, peeling, glazes turning out the wrong colour, cloudy clears etc.
Price: $397 USD / $495 CAD
Next registration opens January 14, 2027. Join the waitlist.
The Art of Glaze Chemistry
Learn how to use glaze calculation software to analyze your glaze recipes and 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 wishing for.
This course takes a super deep dive into the science behind glaze composition so you can develop the best glazes for your work. No previous chemistry knowledge required.
Price: $597 USD / $795 CAD
Next registration opens Spring 2027. 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.
Sue’s Ceramics Blog
Articles and videos about clay, glazes and studio tips, written by Sue McLeod
Why I Use a Graduated Cylinder for Measuring Specific Gravity
I use a graduated cylinder for measuring specific gravity. A slender container is going to have smaller increments than a wide container, giving higher accuracy. You could compare this concept to using a scale with 1g increments vs 5g increments. The smaller measurement is…
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…
Understanding Cone 6 – NCECA presentation 2018
On Mar 15, 2018 I gave my first ever NCECA talk. I was part of a panel discussion called Glazes Without Borders, moderated by Matt Katz. My co-presenters Kiara Matos and Peter Berg gave talks about...
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.
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...
Intro to Glazy.org – Video Tutorial
If you’ve never used Glazy.org before, this is a helpful tutorial to get started. In this tutorial, I go over the basics of using the site.
Adding Colourants in Glazy.org – Video Tutorial
In this tutorial, I go over how to add colourants to a recipe and keep the colourants separate from the base recipe so your base adds up to 100% and your colourants are shown as additions.
Material Substitutions with Glazy.org – Video Tutorial
In this tutorial, I show you how to use Glazy to make material substitutions using the UMF (Unity Molecular Formula).
Don’t Skimp on Safety in the Glaze Lab
Most of our glaze materials come to us in their very basic, unprocessed form. They are dug out of the ground, impurities may or may not be removed, they are ground into a fine powder, bagged and shipped to our suppliers. Working with these minerals in their raw state poses some health risks.
How to Normalize a Glaze Recipe
When a recipe adds up to 100%, we can easily compare it to other recipes. This is particularly useful when we have additions like colourants and opacifiers. The base recipe remains constant while the additions are always relative to 100%. It also allows us to look at 2 recipes side by side and compare the amounts of individual materials. But what do we do if our recipe doesn’t add up to 100%?
Publications
Technofile: Well-Mixed Glazes
Published in Ceramics Monthly - Apr 2026
Click here to read the article!
Originally published in Apr 2026 issue of Ceramics Monthly, pages 58-60. http://www.ceramicsmonthly.org
Technofile: Temp vs Heatwork
Published in Ceramics Monthly - Nov 2024
Click here to read the article!
Originally published in Nov 2024 issue of Ceramics Monthly, pages 54-56. http://www.ceramicsmonthly.org
Technofile: Calcining Kaolin
Published in Ceramics Monthly - Sep 2024
Click here to read the article!
Originally published in Sep 2024 issue of Ceramics Monthly, pages 58-59. http://www.ceramicsmonthly.org
Technofile: Clear Glaze Clarity
Published in Ceramics Monthly - Apr 2024
Click here to read the article!
Originally published in Apr 2024 issue of Ceramics Monthly, pages 58-61. http://www.ceramicsmonthly.org
Technofile: Matte to Glossy
Published in Ceramics Monthly - Jun/Jul/Aug 2023
Click here to read the article!
Originally published in Jun/Jul/Aug 2023 issue of Ceramics Monthly, pages 58-59. http://www.ceramicsmonthly.org
Technofile: Test vs Large Batch
Published in Ceramics Monthly - Oct 2022
Click here to read the article!
Originally published in Oct 2022 issue of Ceramics Monthly, pages 86-87. http://www.ceramicsmonthly.org
Technofile: Air Bubble Myth
Published in Ceramics Monthly - Apr 2021
Click here to read the article!
Originally published in April 2021 issue of Ceramics Monthly, pages 54-55. http://www.ceramicsmonthly.org
Tips and Tools: The Kiln Sitter
Published in Ceramics Monthly - Nov 2020
Click here to read the article!
Originally published in Nov 2020 issue of Ceramics Monthly, pages 60-61. http://www.ceramicsmonthly.org
Technofile: Hard Panned Glazes
Published in Ceramics Monthly - Oct 2020
Click here to read the article!
Originally published in March 2020 issue of Ceramics Monthly, pages 90-91. http://www.ceramicsmonthly.org
Originally published in March 2020 issue of Ceramics Monthly, pages 62-63. http://www.ceramicsmonthly.org
"O La Fuente"
by Sue McLeod
Published in 500 Teapots - Volume 2
Page 257
"Understanding Cone 6" - Pittsburgh 2018
My NCECA presentation Understanding Cone 6 is all about using glaze chemistry, the Unity Molecular Formula and the Stull chart to understand how different surfaces are created at cone 6.
Which glaze formulas are likely to be matte or glossy? Which ones are likely to be crazed or be under-fired? How does flux ratio impact fired results?
Click here to read or watch/listen to this presentation on my website.
Understanding Cone 6 presentation slides and script are also available as a free download!