January Art Project: Stencils

I am at the beginning of my monthly commitment to work on a new medium or tool to create some ART.  Not that making cards (my regular past time in my studio) isn't art, but I have a pretty set way of doing cards, I know what I like and don't like, and messiness isn't part of my style.  So I want to use some mediums that allow mess and lots and lots of bright colors and exploration of creativity at its core.

Stencils have become the rage in paper crafting and multi-media art.  I find myself collecting stencils-- have been doing it since before it was the rage, when Martha Stewart went onto HSN with her paints and showed how you don't have to be able to draw to decorate all sorts of home decor items with just stencils and paint.  Ah, the appeal of easy home decor!!

My goal this month is to start playing with stencils and different mediums with those stencils.  I started with (surprise, surprise) paint, and I have moved onto Martha's stucco paint medium (which is kind of like a modeling paste in texture and thickness), and finally I ventured into Distress Inks and a sponge. 

This project is a work in progress.  I tried to use a jelly plate to print the background only to find that, shockingly, with no pressure from the center of the canvas, it won't print fully!  So I ended up pulling the mixed paint from the jelli plate and rolling it onto the background, which still had enough variation to make me happy.

I stenciled the stars first (Heidi Swapp 6x6 stencil), using a yellow/brown mixture of basic craft acrylic paint.  Then I added the Martha Stewart stucco medium with a Martha stencil.  I want to get back to it and color the raised stencil parts and add some more, but I haven't gotten there yet.  My boys like it the way it is, so it's living displayed in its half-done format, waiting for a few minutes and some pretty orange and pink paint!!

These are from a project we did in Big Picture Class's Play! workshop last week.  I didn't have exactly the supplies at home that they used in the in person class in Anaheim, but I made due with what I had.  I used a Heidi Swapp 6x6 stencil for the stars with Tim Holtz's Broken China distress ink and a gold Colorbox pigment ink.  I used a Balzer Designs stencil with Squeezed Lemonade distress ink.  I started trying to use a stamp for the rays, but that didn't work.  So the yellow stamp isn't quite as distinct as it might have been had I started there, but I didn't want to lose the cool stars, so I pretty much just stenciled on top and hoped for the best.   The pictures don't show it terribly well, but there is a hint of glitter on the canvas-- a happy accident of not having an entirely clean workspace!!

Happy Crafting!

Kim