Ceramic Glazing

AO2: EXPERIMENTS WITH MEDIARefine your ideas through experimenting and selecting appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes.

GCSE Criteria

Glaze is a glossy coating on ceramics. The word Glaze means any extra surface coating. The primary purposes for using glazes are for decoration, protection and waterproofing.

The colour of glaze before it has been fired may be significantly different than what it looks like when it has been fired.

To prevent glazed wares sticking to the kiln during firing it is important that the base of the ceramic object is left unglazed.

What is glaze?

No running or being silly in the classroom. This could cause work to be broken and spillages to happen.

Always wear an apron when doing glazing. It could stain your clothing

Immediately clean up any spillage of glaze. When dry, glaze is a source of dust and therefore can dangerous if people breathe it in.

Clean all equipment after use. If brushes are not cleaned the glaze will go all hard on the bristles and the brushes will not be able to be used again.

Clean your surface at the end of the lesson.

Wash your hands thoroughly after use. Glazes contain toxic materials before they are fired.

Health and Safety

Second Firing

Once your ceramics has been glazed it will be put in the kiln for a second firing. This will melt the glaze and fuse it to the clay body.

This second firing is called a bisque firing. This type of firing brings the temperature up much more slowly, bisquing also reduces the risk of ceramics cracking or exploding in the glaze firing.