Cecilia Swatton

 A couple of months ago, I posted about creating mirror-image prints using my 6" x 6" mask Looking Up Through Trees Small.  

Making each of those prints, I used the same mask twice ....

Above:  The first print has been made and its paint has dried.  The mask has been placed back onto the substrate and secured with masking tape.  I'll use the sponge brayer (upper right) to apply another layer of heavy-body acrylic paint thru the mask.

Below:  An example of a finished print created in this way --

What I'd worked with, at that time, had been the same mask, used twice.  

But now I have a newly released stencil that's the reverse image of my 6" x 6" Garden at Nemours Mask (S658).

Garden at Nemours Mask looks like this:

My brand-new 6" x 6" Garden at Nemours Stencil (S844) looks like this:

On the mask, the "black" areas are negative space; the mask has been laser-cut to create garden imagery as "positive" space.  The negative space defines the positive areas.

On the just-released stencil version, the opposite is true.  The "black" areas are now "positive" and are defined by the "black" areas that have been cut out.  The same image is presented, but this is done by way of a reversal of negative and positive spaces. 

A mask gets its name from the fact that its solid ("white") shapes function to mask out part of the image when a print is being made.

A stencil usually has more "white" areas and its image contains "bridges" (small pieces of Mylar) that hold the design, and the stencil itself, together. 

One of my early experiments with the mask and the brand-new stencil was to place them onto a sheet of Yupo, a synthetic paper-substitute with an ultra-smooth, almost slippery, surface.  This surface makes possible lively flows of liquid color -- watercolor or Golden High Flow Acrylic paints or "plain" inks or alcohol inks.  (Or any combination thereof.)

Here, my choice was the Golden High Flow Acrylics.  My approach was the same technique that I demonstrated in the video that is part of the May 2019 StencilGirl StencilClub set-of-the-month.  

I placed the newly-created Garden at Nemours Stencil S844 on the top half of the Yupo sheet; and with this stencil, I used a "hot" red (Naphthol Red Light) as well as an orange-yellow (Diarylide Yellow.)  These color names are the ones used by Golden Paints; other companies may use different names, so the part to remember is "hot" red and orange-yellow.  

A "cool" red, in contrast, has a faint bluish tint.  

The "hot" reds usually work best with orange-yellow because these two colors are near-neighbors on the color wheel. (Color wheel examples can be found online when you search "color wheel.")  This close proximity makes them known as analagous (or harmonious) colors.  Colors near one another or the color wheel "play well" together.  "Playing well" together greatly reduces the chance of creating "muddy" (muted) colors.

On the top half of the image below, I used Garden at Nemours Stencil S844 and on the bottom half, I used Garden at Nemours Mask S658.  Thus a is created a mirror image that somewhat resembles the mirror-image prints I'd made previously using Looking Up Through Trees Small.

I like to strive for somewhat different "looks" in each of my artworks, so using the mask and the new stencil together helped me work in that direction; I wanted results that would resemble -- yet differ -- from the Looking Up Through Trees Small double-prints.

 Above:  the print's bottom half was made with Golden Phalto Blue Green Shade and Phalto Green Blue Shade.  Both are "cool" colors, chosen because I wanted high contrast between the top and the bottom of this painting.

"Hot" colors are perceived by the viewer's eye as coming forward, whereas "cool" colors are perceived as receding.  Using these opposites together creates a "push-pull" effect for the viewer.  The goal here is to make for a more lively, interesting painting.

My next post will explore other ways to use Garden at Nemours Stencil S844 and Garden at Nemours Mask S658 together.  

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