2. GCSE Criteria
AO2: EXPERIMENTS WITH
MEDIA
Refine your ideas through
experimenting and
selecting appropriate
resources, media,
materials, techniques and
processes.
3. What is glaze?
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.
4. Health and Safety
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.
5. 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.
6. Choice of glazes
Speckle glazes
Cream Speck
Chocolate Chip
Robin’s Egg
Green
What you can do…
Dove Grey
-Use one of the speckle glazes
-Use the crackle glaze on it own
-Choose one speckle glaze and mix with the
crackle glaze
Crackle glaze
Crackle
7. This weeks tasks
1. Glaze your Ceramic pot
2. Photograph this process and
create a page about glazing
this should include your own
images (you may want to leave
space for a photograph of your
fired glazed pot)
3. Write an evaluation on your
finish ceramic piece
4. Print out some of your
collection images A4 size to
complete some mono prints of
next week
EXTRA: Create some A4,
A3 or A2 extra drawings of
your chosen collection in a
media of your choice
DEADLINES: 11B Monday 20th January
11A Wednesday 22nd January
