Sand and Stencils

 I still have bags of colored sand, leftovers from long ago projects.  Recently, when I didn't have any black lava gel on hand, I decided to put some of the old sand to use.

Above:  Purple-tinted craft sand that I'll mix with acrylic gloss heavy gel medium.

Above:  On the left, the gel is ready to be added the sand with an art spatula.  On the right is the substrate, an old calendar page that I've covered in blue acrylic paint.

As the above photo shows, I've mixed the sand and gel.  And I've placed my 6" x 6" Trivet A s166 on the left side of the blue paper while 6" x 6" Trivet C S168 sits at its right. 

My next step was to spread the mixture thru the masks with one hand, while holding them firmly in place with the other hand.  Another option would have been to use masking tape to hold the stencils in place.  Either way, the stiffness of this sand-gel mixture makes it important to hold masks and stencils securely in place during the application.

The photo below shows the results, as soon as the two stencils were lifted.  The gel will turn transparent after drying, but while still fresh, it appears white.

Note:  When using any kind of three-dimensional medium, I put masks and stencils into a basin filled with water, to be cleaned later, when I've finished art-exploring for the day.  Three-dimensional media can easily clog stencil and mask openings if allowed to dry on the stencils; a soak in water keeps that from happening.

After the gel dried, the sand became visible again.  In the photo below, the purple sand appears pinkish-gold, but that's just the effect of the lighting. 

These 3-dimensional papers will be cut into small pieces to become collage elements.  I won't cut thru the 3-dimensional areas; I'll cut around them.

Thanks for stopping by today!  

To scroll thru the pages of my StencilGirl stencils and masks, please start here.