Let the kiln do something extraordinary!

Landscape Alchemy

This is the course where you stop controlling the outcome and start collaborating with it.

You’ll build your landscape from sulphur-rich reactive glass, layered with silver leaf, gold, copper and a range of other metals, minerals and pigments. Then it goes into the kiln – and that’s where the real work happens. As the piece heats, the glass and the metals react with one another, blooming into rich earthy metallics and deep mineral tones that no amount of careful placing could have produced on its own.

The results are spectacular, richly layered and full of detail you didn’t put there. Every time you look at it you’ll find something new, and it’ll take you straight back to somewhere you love.

What You’ll Learn

• Working with reactive glass – how sulphur-rich glass behaves and which combinations produce the strongest reactions
• Applying silver, gold and copper leaf – handling these delicate materials and placing them for maximum effect
• Layering minerals and pigments – building depth and texture through the layers of your piece
• Composing a landscape – horizon placement, foreground and distance, and how to suggest a place rather than copy one
• Predicting the unpredictable – understanding roughly what the kiln will do, so you can plan for it and still be surprised

Jen guides you through the whole process, but there’s real room to experiment here. This is a course that rewards pushing a bit further than you meant to, and she’ll encourage you to do exactly that.

What You’ll Make

One fused glass landscape, 15cm x 35cm, finished in a polished glass frame with hanging fixings fitted to the reverse. The framed piece measures 25cm x 45cm overall, ready to hang the moment you collect it.

The framing is included in the price – no extras to add at checkout, nothing else to buy.

Because so much of the final effect comes from how the metals react in the kiln, no two pieces from the same day ever look remotely alike. Yours will be genuinely one of a kind, in the truest sense.

Perfect For

• Anyone who loves landscape imagery and wants to make one in a material that glows
• Complete beginners – no experience needed, and the reactions do a lot of the heavy lifting
• Experienced fusers curious about reactive glass and metal inclusions
• Anyone who enjoys a process with an element of surprise in it
• Groups and friends booking together – there’s no maximum number on this one
• Anyone wanting a substantial, wall-ready piece from a single afternoon

Why This Course?

Most making is about controlling the outcome. This is the opposite, and that’s what makes it so absorbing. You set up the conditions – the glass, the metals, the layers – and then the kiln takes over and gives you something back that’s better than what you designed.

It’s also a course with genuinely generous materials on the table. Silver and gold leaf and reactive glass aren’t cheap, and there’s plenty of both, so you can be adventurous rather than cautious.

And unlike a lot of fused glass work, your piece arrives finished. Polished frame, fixings on the back, ready to hang – no framing to arrange afterwards, no waiting.

Can’t make the date? Please email us to register your interest at jen@cheshireschoolofglass.co.uk and we can let you know when further dates are added

Your Tutor: Jennifer Barker – Lead Instructor & Founder

Jennifer has been working with glass for over 30 years, having discovered her passion for the medium while studying at Wolverhampton and Staffordshire Universities, where she completed a BA and MA in Glass.

Her expertise spans the full spectrum of glass techniques – from delicate kiln-formed pieces to large architectural installations. Jennifer’s specialist areas include kiln-formed glass, surface manipulation, and kiln-casting, but she’s equally passionate about traditional techniques like stained glass and copper foiling. For 12 years, Jennifer was Head of the Glass Department at Glyndŵr University, where she discovered that teaching glass art was almost as addictive as making it.

What sets Jennifer apart as an instructor is her genuine love for sharing knowledge. She believes that anyone can learn to work with glass beautifully – it just takes the right guidance, encouragement, and plenty of hands-on practice.