Make a "Sandwich," Then Sand or Scrape

Anyone who missed Mary Beth Shaw's recent stencil-using webinar can still get all it had to offer, at this link --

http://www.createmixedmedia.com/events/stencil-girl-webinar

I had known about the sanding technique but hadn't tried it, till the webinar reminded me, with one of its three embedded how-to videos, the one on dry techniques:

http://www.createmixedmedia.com/events/stencil-girl-webinar

Below is a scan that shows two separate pieces, each with a tree-related theme--

 

In the lower left corner is part of a magazine page originally printed with bare trees.  Using Mary Beth's sanding technique shown in the above video, I created a "sandwich" that had my 6"X6" stencil Gingko as the bottom layer (held in place with masking tape.)  Over that I placed the magazine page, securing it, too, with masking tape.  The top "layer" was the sanding block (available at hardware and home supply stores) ... altho a plain sheet of sanding paper could be used, I prefer the block because it saves the fingers!  One quick sanding session resulted in the over-print of gingko leaves that you see above.

 

The larger, whitish background paper started life as a calendar page, a photo that originally contained a lot of dark green.  Under it, I placed a stencil as the bottom layer -- this time, my 12"X12" Mimosa stencil -- again, securing both the stencil and the paper to the work surface with masking tape.  As a last step, I used a credit card to scrape zinc white (also called "blending white") acrylic paint across the paper, moving with the same firm strokes as needed for the sanding technique.  It's important with the scraping technique to go over each area of the paper one time only.  That second swipe is tempting, at least for me, but it never improves the looks of the piece.

 

The sanded piece will be a greeting card cover but it could just as easily become part of a large collage or part of an art journal page.  The larger, whitish paper will be cut into smaller pieces to become gift tags, greeting card backgrounds, and collage components.

 

These 2 stencils can be found on my web pages at STENCILGIRL(TM)Products.com --

 

http://www.stencilgirlproducts.com/category-s/1832.htm

 

Thanks for visiting!