As I was watching you I had an idea that never occurred to me before. Once the 3rd coat of underglaze has dried you could leave the stencil in place in order to wax the stenciled design without being too concerned that wax will get onto the pot where you don’t want it. Heck you could use the stencil to just wax a design, remove the stencil and underglaze everything else. Holy Moly! How long have I been doing this process and never thought of doing this? No matter how long you’ve been a potter there always something new.
If you use freezer paper for your stencil, you could use it multiple times. It has a shiny side that helps it stick to the clay but is easy to peel off. I actually use it for templates sometimes.
Hello. Curious about something. The pot that you showed at the beginning had a yellow background, I'm sure the stoneware you used did not fire to a yellow color, so you must have applied yellow underglaze, under the black leaves. Did you apply the yellow over the pot first then leaves over the top of that? I'm wondering if the water in the black underglaze and that used to wet the newsprint would have softened the yellow and the two would have run together? I'm imagining the colors smearing together. When I do this, I'd probably cover the pot with white and paint an image over the top. Never did this before, trying to figure it out. Thanks~
elephantcup the yellow color is a transparent caramel glaze that I dip the pot in after it has been bisque fired. Since it is a transparent glaze the black underglaze is able to show through.
I haven't tried to reuse them, but I made stencils from kid's school book covering with a backing layer that peels off. It is cheap and the tacky surface sticks to raw clay and even glaze. When you take it off, the tacky surface takes a very thin layer of glaze with it. Only the particles that are in contact with the tacky surface are removed, so it makes little difference to the fired glaze.
