Pottery Class – Tuesday evenings – 8 sessions
€425,00 incl. VAT
Learn how to create, test, and understand glazes in just 3 intensive days.
Over the course of three Saturdays, I’ll teach you how to formulate and understand stoneware glazes on your own. What are the main ingredients? How do you combine them, and how can you vary them? We’ll work in pairs, which will give us plenty of opportunities to experiment! We’ll start each class with theory, which I’ll send you in advance so you can read through the information beforehand. Together with the photos and class notes, this will give you a great foundation to build on as you continue working on your own.
If you have been working with ceramics for a while and have already worked with engobes, semi-finished products and have already put together your own pottery glaze and understand a bit about what raw materials do in it, then this is a great next step. Ideally, you have your own kiln(s) or you can experiment with making your own glaze at your course location. But this is not necessary. I teach the course in an approachable way, where we mainly get to work and test a lot and then analyze the results. Of course there is also theory involved but I have the same approach to making glaze as I have to cooking. You have to get to know your ingredients and understand what they do and in combination with each other. I personally stay far away from something like the Seger formula. Glazes are quite a challenge and this is really the basics. How to make a horizontal test, how to make a raw material test and how to make a color test. We are not going to work with crystal glazes! These are incredibly difficult and error prone so for the advanced glazier.
Lesson 1: Introduction: In the morning, we’ll cover the theory behind how the different groups of raw materials work, how my studio operates, how to work safely, how to mix a glaze, and how to apply a glaze. In the afternoon, we’ll get started with the raw materials test: using two different bases, we’ll test nine different raw materials to see what effect they have in a stoneware environment.
Lesson 2: We’ll start with the best part of glazing: examining the test pieces from the previous lesson that have come out of the kiln. Together, we’ll analyze the results. Everyone will choose an interesting raw material from these, which we’ll use to create a binary series in the morning. In the afternoon, we’ll create a glaze triangle based on three different raw materials.
Lesson 3: In the morning, we’ll analyze the binary sequences and the raw material triangles, and we’ll color in the best results using different types of oxides and pigments. In the afternoon, we’ll also create a color triangle based on this. Conclusion. Raw material test: Using two different bases, we’ll test nine different raw materials to see what effect they have in a stoneware environment.
Dates/times:
Saturday, August 29, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Saturday, October 3, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Saturday, October 31, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Cost: €425
The cost includes the glaze materials, coffee/tea, and a delicious lunch. On the last afternoon, we’ll wrap things up with a fun get-together over drinks.
Ingredients, gloves, cups and tools are provided.
Sample tiles and tile stands (I’ll send an email about this before the course starts with all the details and a link to a YouTube video)
Gold scales (0.1 gram accuracy), Brushes (a little flat), Apron, Mouth mask, Notebook, Pen, Possibly a laptop, (Logo) Stamp, Glazing pencil, Wallpaper tape, Permanent Marker, multi-binder with slip-in sleeves and inserts you can write on.
