Roberta12

I decided a couple of days ago it is time to get started on rejuvenating  our house.   The carpet in the office is worn out and the misc. furniture is old and was old when we bought it  We spent the last two days looking for real wood flooring to match the wood in the rest of the house.   No more carpet,   we think we found it today now all we have to do is get the samples.  The rest of the carpeted areas will get new floor and paint this fall.  I have to shop now for office furniture and a sofa,  our old furniture will be donated.   Denice

Big plan for this summer is to get my partner fit and well and back out doing stuff after 18  months of surgery/partial recovery/surgery/partial recovery/surgery.
I'm going for a week's "summer school" with the Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers - There will be with 300 people spread over 18 different courses.  I will be dyeing with natural dyes.  We will be staying at an agricultural university in Shropshire.
The rest will be filled with hiding from the sun - sun rash is really irriting - in all senses, gardening, spinning, weaving, dyeing and volunteering.  Oh, and some pottery.

Wow @Hulk Lots of home projects for sure!  My husband and mom have had some recent health issues but those are getting sorted out now.  Our camping plans have been delayed so that is probably what we will be doing in July and August as well as going to NM to see kids.  We only have an outdoor pool in town for swimming so I am enjoying swimming laps as much as I can.  I am also leaving in a few days to go to a workshop at Idyllwild Arts.  The presenter will be Ruth Easterbrook.  It should be fun.  They have a great facility there.  Ooops, that is sort of a ceramic plan, isn't it!?  
Roberta

@Roberta12 - I have not, standard art brushes that you prefer to paint with probably. filberts, flats, liner, limited use of mops, daggers, etc..  Typically synthetic - nothing special really. More about what you would use to paint. Donna Dewberry brushes were cheap at one point. Paul Lexington has a decent book: “ China paint and Overglaze” finding the right medium to match your preference probably most time consuming. Clove and lavender!
Stuff seems to seep under stencils due to adhesion and cohesion. The pin stripe masking tape is an easy way to stop this movement for me.

Wow @Hulk Lots of home projects for sure!  My husband and mom have had some recent health issues but those are getting sorted out now.  Our camping plans have been delayed so that is probably what we will be doing in July and August as well as going to NM to see kids.  We only have an outdoor pool in town for swimming so I am enjoying swimming laps as much as I can.  I am also leaving in a few days to go to a workshop at Idyllwild Arts.  The presenter will be Ruth Easterbrook.  It should be fun.  They have a great facility there.  Ooops, that is sort of a ceramic plan, isn't it!?  
Roberta

Wow @Hulk Lots of home projects for sure!  My husband and mom have had some recent health issues but those are getting sorted out now.  Our camping plans have been delayed so that is probably what we will be doing in July and August as well as going to NM to see kids.  We only have an outdoor pool in town for swimming so I am enjoying swimming laps as much as I can.  I am also leaving in a few days to go to a workshop at Idyllwild Arts.  The presenter will be Ruth Easterbrook.  It should be fun.  They have a great facility there.  Ooops, that is sort of a ceramic plan, isn't it!?  
Roberta

I prefer to work alone,  every  time I take a class I end up teaching.   One summer I enrolled my son and his best friend in a throwing class,  I enrolled also so I could teach them how to throw.   The first day of class the teacher showed up with her hands and arms covered in bandages,  she had tried to break up  a dog fight.   I didn't get to work with my son that much,  busy teaching  the class to throw.  He  did throw a bowl by the end of the class.    The next class I tried to take was tile making,  I had been making tile for a few years.  From reading the brochure I thought I would learn some new methods.   First class the teacher told us that the class had been doubled booked accidently  and the teacher who was suppose to help was sick.   The students were suppose to bring their tile design and  something from nature to work with.   I was the only one who did that out of 30 people,  the teacher asked me if could help teach the class.  I agreed the summer college class was nothing but chaos.  I had my tiles made in  less than a day,  didn't have anything else to do.   The college was a two hour drive from my home,  the fees for the class included a dorm room for the week.    I stayed thinking that it would get better.     Denice

My experience, it’s hard to keep it from flowing under the stencil so depending on size and shape this may prove to have its issues. Precise brushwork is a thing with multiple coats over the top. Real automotive pinstripe masking tape does allow for very precise lines, especially1/8” and will keep the media from flowing beyond its boundary. Gold needs to be fairly thick (else fires ugly) so often multiple coats are the answer for me which often means more freehand work. If it’s tape masked, then no worries for me.

Ahhhh. The best solution. Find something that works and stick with it.
No one can say you didn’t try, that’s for sure! I appreciate you sharing that journey. 

Besides the obvious issue with firing large slabs flat (dunting), the other issue is uneven heat. The side exposed to ambient kiln temperature can vary to the temperature under the slab in direct contact with the shelf; further adding to the warp issue. I have fire porcelain slabs up to 30” square by bisq firing them on edge. Use tile setters as shown, or prop them up using other wares. 
Tom

Most if not all of your pieces will probably be fine. Some glaze melting will start at bisque temps, but shutting down at those temps usually doesn't cause any problems. Start it back up and fire to cone 5.

Hi Carol and welcome to the forum!
What I used was computer paper and a circle cutter punch. Cut out the circle and used the surrounding paper with the hole cut out of it as a stencil. Dipped the paper into water, let it sit a couple minutes then applied it to the leatherhard clay with a damp sponge, let the surface water dry off a little bit then brushed the underglaze on.  (porcelain with spectrum underglazes)

I really like the off register look @neilestrick
r,

Well, for those following this thread... I joined an Amaco ^5/6 glaze group on Facebook and searched for mentions of this Blue Spark glaze there. A lot of people struggle to get it to behave as advertised. Lots of bubbles and pinholes, lots of colors not as expected. To the point that Amaco support posted a document called Troubleshooting Blue Spark Glaze, and one forum member was so frustrated he told Amaco support he is switching to Mayco glazes!  
I'll play around with it more based on insights provided here and also on the Amaco group ... 
Thanks again for all the expert feedback! It's very educational for me.

@MKG001 the MSDS doesn’t give anything that screams out “this clay has a bunch of stuff in it that needs to burn off.” It could be the feldspar, could be they used a plastic but dirty kaolin, could have been another ingredient that isn’t listed, but contributes disproportionately to the Loss On Igniton numbers. 

If the pitting is showing up on the same clay but with a different glaze, that’s a strong indication the clay body is part of the problem.
An interesting observation: I went to the website link Peter posted to see if I could find a more detailed MSD sheet. I wanted to see if there was any mention of any material that might be off-gassing. When I zoomed in on the pictures of the glazed bowls, that glaze also shows signs of pitting. So that’s a pretty strong indication.
I didn’t look too hard for the MSD sheet after that, but I’m pretty confident there’s an inexpensive ingredient, or one that makes the clay easier to use that has a lot of sulphites or other organics. If you’ve got any of this clay left and you’re doing your own firing, you might try using the slow bisque cycle if you’re not already. If you are, program a bit of an extra 15-20 mini soak in the 250-600 C/ 480-1110 F range to allow some more burn off time. 

Yes. Other factors involved but body outgassing is definitely one.

So it's actually a cone 8 clay. Not as tight as I'd like at cone 5, too tight at cone 10 (for a stoneware body).

It appears that the pits go all the way through to the body, so the bubbles are starting there. You say the body is rated for cone 5-10. That means it is immature at cone 5/6, not mature until 10. An alleged  wide firing range is one of the unfortunate fallacies perpetrated by the clay industry. My guess is that there is still stuff outgassing from the body at cone 6. If you are using a kiln with a digital controller, you can try a controlled cooling to allow the glaze to heal over any bubbles that are coming up.
As for the unexpected color, I'm not familiar with that glaze.

My husband has always been supportive of my clay life.  I started my small business after I had retired and he retired a year later.  He takes the clay downstairs for me, helps haul greenware out of the house to the shop where I fire,  has worked some of the larger out of town shows with me (he is a good wrapper of pots).  I have made pots working around a shoulder repair, a hip replacement with a fractured femur, and a knee replacement.  So my husband has been a great help with loading and unloading the kiln.  I had an unexpected kiln repair one November and had the kiln torn apart replacing elements etc,  it was -30 degrees and 10:30 p.m with a show looming.    I was at the end of my last nerve, he came out to check on me and lend a hand.  I said, "don't you wish I had became a knitter and sold hats?"   He said, "no, that wouldn't have been nearly as interesting!"  
r

"Oh yes, pass for most of us, sending around with strangers making clay pots, no thank you"
"What's fascinating is the types of items fellow students make. ... Time, imagination and a willingness to fail - none of us cares if we make something ugly or lame - have freed us to create. It's an exhilarating experience."

Decent article, liked the links especially.  I scrolled the comments-they were all over the place. I liked one from somebody talking about the attraction maybe being more about touching physical material,  rather than hanging w/people, noting that even paper was removed from him via working on the computer. 

Times allows limited (ten?) article reads per month for non-subcribers...
Pottery Workshops Fill Up as People Travel to Connect Over Clay - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Interesting read, e.g. “Clay is the opposite of the cellphone,”
Be sure to check the comments as well.
As much as I truly enjoyed being in a community Studio*, the dust and artificial scents (hair products, washing solution, dryer sheets, cologne, perfume, oooh the et cetera) pose a looming ...barrier.
 
*On arrival (always waay early), a slow tour of all the cubbies, the drying cupboard, glaze racks, everything! As the semester moves ahead, so does everyone's work.
As the other students arrive, visiting and banter.
Each hour, a new selection of music (when the instructor isn't lecturing).
Watching how each person works a bit differently!
 
Added: another Times article
Can Old-World Horezu Pottery Survive Modern Tastes? - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Thanks for all the info! I've been doing a lot of underglaze transfers over the last couple of months, and I tried using the newsprint I use to wrap pots when I sell them, and I was not happy with the results. The underglaze is much more likely to flake off when it dries, and the wrinkling is a big issue. I'm doing large patterns, not line work, so there's a lot of underglaze on the paper and it wrinkles up a lot. I've settled on half-raw rice paper, printed on the raw side. It holds the underglaze well, releases very quickly, and doesn't wrinkle much at all. I've just been buying it off Amazon, about 29 cents per sheet.

I've been using adhesive vinyl cut on my Cricut to make the screens, with Speedball Screen Filler, and it has worked very well. This is a shot of the vinyl being removed from the screen once the filler has dried:

Interesting subject,   I sold my most interesting cup a year ago to a customer who broke one of a set.   I made them for valentines day.   The top was heart shaped,  to create that shape one side had deep crease down it.   For some reason people ignored the heart shape and liked the crease area calling it a butt mug.   Just for fun I put a tattoo on the bottom of the cup,  so the person sitting across from you gets a glimpse.  Conversation starter.   They didn't sell well because they were a 6oz coffee cup size,  the people who did like them were into very strong and very hot coffee.  They told me that the curve of the cup helped keep it hot and it was small enough that to refill frequently with hot coffee.   I am not much of a coffee drinker I didn't realize that people wanted to buy large mugs.     Denice