Community Resources
We feel so lucky to get to do what we love every day! And it’s all because of the support of our amazing ceramics community!
Stay up to date with our blog articles, podcast, and newsletters below!
If you didn’t know, Ceramic Materials Workshop is a small business. Our mission is to provide our community with a solid understanding of their glazes and clay to make your studios the best that they can be. In order to do that, we do all of our testing, research, editing and production in house. If you find our content helpful, please consider supporting our mission by taking some of our online courses or supporting us via our Patreon. Our team thanks you for your consideration!
Commercial Ceramic Stain Research
Stop guessing and start choosing stains with confidence. CMW’s newest digital e-book – Stain Spectrum – is a research-driven visual reference library built from two years of rigorous testing by the Ceramic Materials Workshop team. Inside, you will find visual references for 90 ceramic stains, documented within a controlled system to isolate and showcase the true nature and effects of each individual stain.
Each stain is shown through a consistent testing matrix designed for clear, side-by-side comparison. We held the clay body, fit-adjusted base glaze systems, and application method constant—then varied the conditions that actually change color: Cone 6 vs Cone 10, oxidation vs reduction, stain loading from 2.5% to 10%, and thin vs thick application (one dip vs two dips). The result is a practical studio tool for artists, students, and educators who want more predictable outcomes and fewer wasted tests.
Free Courses
Batch, please!
Learn how we mix and batch a glaze!
Self Absorbed
Learn more about clay body absorption and why it’s important.
Glow Up!
Rose shows you how to make a glow in the dark glaze.
Make a Plaster Slab
Learn how we make a plaster slab for testing.
CMW UMF Calculators
UMF glaze calculators are designed to assist potters in formulating glazes with specific surfaces and textures in mind. At their core, these calculators utilize the concept of Unity Molecular Formula, which represents the molecular ratios of the materials in the glaze. By inputting the desired materials and their respective proportions, you can generate custom recipes that perfectly align with your artistic vision.
Commercial Clay Body Profile Testing
Over the past several years, the CMW team has collected and tested scores of commercially available clay bodies. The results are meant to help our students understand how these clay bodies perform to make their studios the best that they can be. Click below button to find results of the bodies that have been tested to date. We plan to add additional profiles as we continue to test additional clay bodies.
Free YouTube Course Content
The CMW Blog
Behind the Scenes of What We’re Working on!
Nickel Oxide: The Most Underestimated Colorant in Ceramics
Nickel oxide rarely gets the same attention as cobalt or copper. It doesn’t produce loud blues or dramatic reds. Most of the time, nickel sits in the background making browns, grays, muted greens, and smoky tones. Which is exactly why a lot of potters underestimate...
Manganese Dioxide
Manganese is one of those glaze materials that can be easy to confuse by name but hard to replace in practice. It is not magnesium. Magnesium and manganese are completely different materials, and they play very different roles in glaze chemistry. In the studio,...
Chrome Oxide: The Colorant with a Personality
If you've spent any time around glaze chemistry, you've probably heard the word chrome thrown around constantly. In ceramics, “chrome” almost always means chrome oxide — one of the major transition metal colorants used in glazes. At first glance, chrome seems simple....
For Flux Sake Podcast
Listen to Our Latest Podcast Episodes.
Ep 131 – The cost versus reliability episode
Today the gang compares cost versus reliability when buying kilns and kiln shelves. The episode starts with a question about purchasing S-type thermocouples for new kilns and a discussion about preventing warping in cordierite kiln shelves. On a related but strange...
Ep 130 – Can I add something to a commercial glaze to change its temperature?
To start today’s episode the gang talk about their upcoming live show in Boston. We hope you will join us June 5th at the Harvard Ed Portal, where Kathy, Matt, Rose, and Producer Ben will be ready to answer your burning questions about clay and glaze. They also answer...
Ep 129 – PATREON EXCLUSIVE (FLUX U) Why do layered glazes look different every time?
Today we have a special Flux U episode where the gang dive deep into glaze application to answer a listener's question about the chemical and physical limitations of glaze layering. What seems like a simple topic turns out to be quite complex. They also talk about...
The Megan Whetstine Memorial Scholarship
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