Making Glazes, Make Sense: The Ultimate Glaze Chemistry Guide

Unlock the mysteries of ceramic glazes with our most comprehensive glaze course to date! This isn’t just another glaze class; it’s the definitive guide to mastering glaze chemistry, designed for all levels of students – beginner, intermediate, and advanced learners are all welcome.

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Course Overview

Making Glazes, Make Sense is a course focused on the science behind glazes. No more myths and legends about how glazes work, only facts and science. ​The course provides information and science to help everyone utilize glazes in ways that will help them take control of their materials and make their studios the best they can be.

This immersive, 16 module long course has over 80 hours of educational content will teach you literally everything you need to know about glazes, transforming your understanding from basic application to in-depth chemical mastery. We build upon all the core topics of “Understanding Glazes” and expand significantly, adding four extra weeks of critical content, including deep dives into Color, Application, Health & Safety, and Firing.

By the end of this course, you’ll gain:

  • A profound understanding of glaze chemistry: From raw materials to molecular structures, you’ll comprehend the science behind stunning glazes, including the nuances of color development.

  • The ability to formulate your own glazes from scratch: Move beyond recipes and learn to design glazes, controlling every aspect of their appearance, performance, and application.

  • Expert troubleshooting skills: Diagnose and fix common glaze problems with confidence and precision.

  • Enhanced creative freedom: Unlock a new world of artistic possibilities through informed glaze choices, original formulations, and a mastery of application techniques.

  • Increased confidence in your glazing practice:  Feel empowered to experiment, innovate and safely handle glaze materials with a solid foundation of knowledge. 

Sample Video

Course Outline

  • Introduction to the course
  • Introduction to glazes
  • Geology
  • Chemistry
  • Glass Formers
  • Alkali Metals
  • Alkaline Earths
  • Seger and Stull
  • U.M.F. Calculations 
  • Durability 
  • Boron 
  • Special Effects 
  • Glaze Flaws
  • Color
  • Application
  • Health & Safety
  • Firing
  • 5 – Optional Lab Experiments curated to accompany the lectures

Enrollment

Full Guided Experience!

$700

Immediate Lifetime Access

Enroll Here!

If you want to experience the fully guided course that includes everything:

  • Matt’s expert guidance with over 100 hours of educational content
  • On demand lectures – watch as many times as you like
  • Optional curated lab experiments that accompany the lectures for an in depth learning experience.  List of materials and equipment provided upon enrollment.
  • Live online Q&A discussions with Matt and the other students
  • Ask Matt your questions directly on the Course Discussion pages 
  • Includes 6 months of our new High Fire Tier, starting the moment you enroll — the studio side of CMW, where you save recipes and clay bodies, generate structured tests, keep your firing profiles, open our research data, and join the live room.
  • Video features include closed captioning, searchable transcripts, settings for quality and speed and full screen viewing.
  • Certificate of Completion

Cost:  $700 

Completion of this course meets the requirement to enroll in the Full Guided Experience Advancing Glazes course.  

Course Announcements

Matthew Katz

Matt Katz has been teaching for years at world class institutions including The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Rhode Island School of Design and Harvard University.

Course Reviews

What Students are Saying

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Frequently Asked Questions

Answers to Your Most Pressing Questions

What experience level is this class for?

Our classes are designed for makers of all levels. We’ve had professionals with 50 years of experience and we’ve had folks take our classes after having one studio class at their local community college. Everyone comes out truly understanding glazes.

Are you going to talk about…

Let me stop you there. We are going to talk about EVERYTHING.

Temperatures? Yes? Atmosphere? You better believe it. Materials? No way around it. At the end of this course, you will have a thorough understanding of ALL aspects of clays.

Why should I take this class?

I’ve got books. Books are great, but books are a supplement and a reference in education. The reason why school is still lecture classes, is because audio/visual learning is still the most powerful educational tool.

When I first started studying glazes I got a book, and I read every word…and I understood about 1% of it. The experience of listening and looking helps us to truly UNDERSTAND a subject.

I work at temperature X, is this class relevant to me?

Yes, we talk about glazes as a whole. All firing temperatures are interrelated. We’ll teach you all of the how’s and why’s of all glazes.