PRAYER FLAGS 9" x 12" Stencil

Because of the sharp angles in their designs, I've sometimes paired my 9" x 12" stencil Prayer Flags with another 9" x 12" stencil of mine, Mimosa.  Below are three close-ups showing imprints on stretched canvas; in all three, Mimosa was used first, then Prayer Flags was imprinted over it.

These first three, above, were created with a technique demonstrated in the Absentee Artist chapter of Creative Paper Art by Nancy Welch; also it's shown in Pat Dews' DVD Designing Great Starts with Texture and Form (available at Cheap Joe's Art Supplies.) 

Below is an imprint using the full Prayer Flags stencil.  My substrate was an old calendar page which I first painted with translucent green gold acrylic paint.  After that dried I placed the stencil over it.  Then I loaded a sponge brayer with heavy-body gray paint and ran that over the stencil.  

Today's post closes with two more close-ups of Prayer Flags imprints on stretched canvas.  This time, I used the subtractive/reductive technique to make prints.  I've posted step-by-step directions for this technique, with photos, here.  

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Young Artists and Words of Wisdom for Every Art Class or Workshop

Gymnastic friends and budding artists, Candace Kieya and Olivia Alexander are the young beauties whose art is featured in today's post.

Pictured here (left) holding up art made with a stencil by Jessica Sporn, Candace says,  "I really like the ancient effect with the dark colors, designs and different stencil prints.  I would definitely do this again!"

And Olivia (right) says "that my plan really wasn't to make beautiful art but to just have fun and learn from my mistakes."

Olivia, I would like to engrave your words in stone!  Your statement should be the motto of every person who participates in an art class or workshop.  To use a trite phrase, you are wise beyond your years!  

Olivia above is posing with art she created with my 6" x 6" stencil Heron.

My sincere thanks to Lisa Dobry for this photo and for her kindness in getting parental permission as well as the girls' comments for posting here.  Lisa, you rock!

I'm also indebted to Lisa for her own thoughts about this art-play-date the two youngsters enjoyed --

What Lisa loved about this whole process with the girls was the creativity of their pieces. 

Candace had never Gelli printed before, so Lisa offered a tutorial on that. 

Suggesting they start with 3 colors, Lisa moved the stencil collection closer to them and let them do their thing. 

Occasionally one would express a desire for something specific like, "I want to put something here."  Lisa then would ask the young artist whether she were thinking something random, or something else that would be more repetitive of what was already there.

Lisa told the girls they could use paint or spray ink; she also explained the difference between water-soluble media and acrylic media. 

The two girls made their own choices on everything. 

Below are photos of the projects after embellishments had been added --

It's always a joy to see young artists in action and to hear their own comments about art-making experiences.  

MIMOSA 6 Stencil and Artist Kyriakos Pachadiroglou

Earlier this summer, StencilGirl hosted a blog hop featuring a number of artists with a wide range of great ideas.  My last post came from that blog hop and so does today's post.

Artist Kyriakos Pachadiroglou has used my 6" x 6" stencil Mimosa 6 in a fantastic way -- I love the creativity shown in detail here, as well as its results!

My thank-you to you, for stopping by today; if interested in following this blog by email, please use this option in the upper right sidebar.

To keep up with Kyriakos and his beautiful projects, please check here.

To see all my stencils, please visit here.  Many thanks!

To see my 9" x 12" stencil Clustered Leaves used to make collage paper on a coffee filter, please visit https://www.karen-gaunt.com/blog/stencilgirl-and-imagine-crafts-summer-blog-hop

Artist Karen Gaunt has done what I do -- liberated the stencil from its outer borders.  Doing this is a quick and easy cutting job.

Thank you, Karen, for having chosen one of my stencils for this project!

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To see all my stencils, please visit here.

Mary Amendola-Marley

Artist Mary Amendola-Marley has used my 9" x 12" stencil Clustered Leaves with stencils from Trish McKinney's Mysterious Wisteria Collection as well as Trish's Graceful Bare Branch.  With metallic, three-dimensional-looking results!

Now, here is an outstanding and unique work of art!

I notice that Mary Amendola-Marley has done what I do -- cut Clustered Leaves free from its outer rectangular frame.  I love the open look this gives the leaves pattern!  

This 9" x 12" stencil in its entirety looks like this--

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Gelli Arts Artist Marsha Valk Used CLUSTERED LEAVES Stencil among Others to Make Gorgeous Flowers

Some years ago, in Newark, NJ, I had the pleasure of taking a class given by Joan Bess.   This talented and generous artist went on to co-found Gelli Arts.  The rest is history! 

A subscriber to the Gelli Arts blog, I was delighted to see this post --

-- because, among the many pretty stencils used in this demo, artist Marsha Valk chose to include my 9" x 12" stencil Clustered Leaves.  You can see the backside of this print in the photo below.

My Clustered Leaves stencil looks like this in its entirety --

-- and it can be easily customized by cutting off its rectangular border.  Several artists, including myself, have done this and have been happy with the results.

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FANTASIA and PUDDLES Stencils

The 6" x 6" stencil Puddles, by Rae Missigman, has slid right into my top ten favorites!

In the artwork below, I've used Rae's stencil along with part of my 9" x 12" stencil Fantasia --

Repeated use of Rae's stencil makes up the bulk of the design, while the vertical lower right area is formed by part of Fantasia.  The largest circles are freehand drawn.

The technique I used to make this art on stretched canvas comes from two sources:  The Absentee Artist chapter of the book Creative Paper Art, by Nancy Welch, and Pat Dews' DVD Designing Great Starts with Texture and Form (available at Cheap Joe's Art Supplies online.)

Fantasia in its entirety (before I customize it with scissors) looks like this:

I've also used Rae Missigman's Puddles stencil to make this subtle embellishment for a greeting card --

Subtle but beautiful, because of the stencil design.  Love it!

If you'd like to see all my stencils, please visit here.

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KALEID Stencil

For this project, I chose mat board as my substrate since I needed something sturdy.

I used masking tape to secure my 6" x 6" stencil Kaleid to the substrate  (I recommend Frog Tape -- sold at Lowe's, AmazonSmile.com, etc.) 

With an old credit card, I spread heavy matte gel through my stencil.  Immediately after lifting off the stencil, I cleaned it.  

Once the gel had dried completely -- several hours, give or take -- I rubbed Pan Pastel across the ridges.

The image above is a close-up detail.  Kaleid stencil in its entirety looks like this --

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To see my full line of stencils, please visit here.

Striking Gold ... with Stencils

For this project, my substrate was 140-lb. hot-press watercolor paper.  I brushed it with a coat of a rich deep gold made by Golden --

After the paint dried, I added stencils with masking tape to hold them secure --

Stencils shown above are (on the far right) my 9" X 12" Borders #2 stencil, 

-- and (bottom left) part of my 9" X 12" Boxed Vines stencil;

and my 6"X6" Mimosa stencil (upper left)

and my 6"X6" Kaleid stencil (top row, middle.)


I very lightly pounced thru the stencil openings with a Ranger alcohol ink applicator and just a few drops of Ranger alcohol inks, pictured below.  

Note at the top of this photo:  (L) Bottles of Ranger alcohol inks and (R) the applicator

Below is the sheet of gilded paper after the stencils were lifted off.

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To see all my stencils, please visit here.

Paint-Scraping over Stencils

This technique is a "wet" version of the crayon-rubbing technique that's been around forever.  The old-style technique calls for dry crayon or other soft media such as pastels or charcoal; but what's used here is acrylic paint.  I've found that heavy-body acrylic paints work better for this application than the liquid versions.

For this technique I always choose stencils with large openings, rather than stencils with intricate, fine details.  

Below are the six 6"X6" StencilGirl stencils that I've used today:

Top row, L to R -- Trivet B (my stencil), Mimosa (my stencil), and Curvie Lattice (by Mary Beth Shaw)

Bottom row, L to R -- two copies of Kaleid (my stencil) and Intersections (by Wendy Aikin) 

Below:  One sheet of Lineco tissue has been secured over the stencils with masking tape.   

Below:  Wet acrylic paint (blue, taupe and orange) sits atop each column of stencils, ready to be scraped downward over the paper.  You can click on this photo to enlarge it and better see detail.

Above:  I've spread the tools I typically use for scraping.  The shower-wall-cleaning "squeegie" did a better job than the Princeton Wedge (altho the Wedge is great for other projects.)  The paint-covered credit card and the white rigid-plastic wedge (from a home supply store) both work well, too.

Above:  Paint has been scraped down across the stencils; then more paint was added and scraped down in the same way, using slight pressure as the scraping tool was pulled downward.

Important tip:  If using Lineco tissue paper, remove the paper from the stencils as soon as you have finished the paint-scraping.  If the paint is allowed to dry first, the paper will stick to the stencils and will be more difficult to remove. 

I used both Lineco tissue and dry-wax deli paper for this project and found that the Lineco tissue will expand and form wrinkles as it is being scraped by the paint-loaded tool.  This does not happen with the deli paper.  However, deli paper is more resistant to the paint; prints on it may not show up as well.

After these first scraped paints had dried, I turned the tissue over and repeated the same technique on the other side.  I used different colors of paint on the second side so that, when finished, the paper would be printed on both sides, with non-matching prints.

After the paint had dried on the second side, the tissue paper was ready to be cut for use in collages, greeting card covers, scrapbooking, art journaling, etc.

Important note:  Doing both sides of the tissue makes the finished product stronger.  When cutting up the finished paper, make sure to check both sides before making the final cuts.  Sometimes you will like the "top" side of one section and the "bottom" side of another section of the printed paper.

Below is a greeting card collaged with a variety of tissues that have been paint-scraped to pick up the designs of stencils under the tissue.  The most prominent piece (background yellow) was made with my Kaleid 6" x 6" stencil. 

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