Dates: Mon 21 July – Fri 25 July 2025
and Mon 23 March – Fri 27 March 2026
Time: Teaching starts at 10am and finishes around 4pm. Dinner is served at 7pm
Cost: £800 including VAT (includes tuition, materials, consumables, firings, PPE, 4 nights accommodation and evening meals).
Catering: An evening meal is provided as part of the course Monday – Thursday.
Places: 6 (Intermediate+)
Information on access is at the bottom of this page.
*We can offer accommodation on the Sunday evening for people travelling from further afield for an additional £36. Please email accounts@ssw.org.uk if this is required, following booking online.
Our ever popular Glaze Intensive is an in-depth course exploring experimental and sculptural glazing. Glaze is a fundamental part of the ceramics process and offers a huge range of colours, depth and texture to clay work.
Across the jam-packed 5 days, participants will be introduced to a range of techniques around mixing, formulating, and testing of glazes. We will cover glaze application and kiln firings. Working with SSW’s bespoke in-house glazes while developing skills in glaze formation, you will learn how to achieve a range of finishes to suit your work, from high gloss to true matt glazes, volcanic and crater textures to shrink and crawl glazes.
Participants on this course are required to bring a range of bisque fired pieces to experiment with. Please bring self supporting/standing test tiles (for example T shaped tiles or small tumblers). We will be firing to Cone 6/1243 degrees celsius so make sure your clay is suitable for this temperature. A white stoneware is great for seeing how certain glazes react, but you are welcome to bring a range of clays to experiment with.
By the end of the course you will have a range of test tiles of glazes to take away for future reference and experimentation. During the 5 day course we will have multiple firings and participants are welcome to take along pots and sculptures to glaze. However these will be fired depending on what space is available in the kiln and priority given to test tiles.
Alongside day time tuition we will also take time in the evenings to:
– Explore historical glaze examples and how it is being used in work today
– Share your own practices with the groups, and their relevance to ceramics.
– Related thematic film night
– Pit firing using ashes and other combustibles
Participants may also wish to bring along found ingredients of their own such as ash or clay to experiment with.
Booking
Book your place on the Introduction to Glaze Intensive Course below. You will receive a booking confirmation email to the provided address once your booking is complete. Please read our Courses terms and conditions before making your booking. You can also book by phone by calling 01464 861372.
Accommodation
At SSW we have simple shared accommodation alongside an on-site bothy that provides collective space for cooking, meeting and socialising. All courses are residential and we can not offer non residential offer this year.
Accessibility
We understand that you may need additional support in place to participate in one of our courses, from bringing a support worker, to communication or accommodation needs, among many other possibilities. If you would like to discuss this informally please get in touch with our Programme and Partnerships Director by emailing sam@ssw.org.uk or phoning 01464 861372.
There is information on accessibility at SSW here, but if you have any questions we are happy to help.
