Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Repeating Designs in Abstract Fine Art thru Stencil Use
Above is a close-up of a mixed-media collage I will be bringing to my April 15 demo at Monmouth Festival of the Arts ...
http://monmouthfestivalofthearts.com/festival-information/brochure/
... wherein I will show a number of fine-art applications using stencils from StencilGirlProducts.com.
Like many of the techniques I use, this one that I call "stencil-and-scrape" is not entirely original. I did discover it by way of happy accident -- but shortly afterward, I saw that someone else had made the same discovery and posted it on the Internet.
After using masking tape to secure a stencil to my substrate, I use more tape to add a sheet of translucent paper over the stencil. I use deli wrap paper, but tracing paper or many other substitutes will work as well. With a credit card or an artist's spatula, I then scrape acrylic paint over the paper atop the stencil. This is simply a "wet" version of making a rubbing, an old technique that I described in a much earlier post. It is much faster and easier than the traditional dry rubbing method. When I do it, I'm careful to stroke the loaded scraper in one direction only. I use several strokes, moving from left to right across the paper atop the stencil.
I remove the translucent paper and set it aside to dry. After dry-time, I cut it into desired shapes and add it to my mixed-media collages, as shown above: The far left shows a paper that was scraped over my
Kaleid
stencil, using a combination of gold and white acrylic paints.
The pink middle section was created with one of my other favorite stencils from StencilGirlProducts.com, using the tried-and-true method of simply sponging on paint thru the stencil's openings.
The aqua right side was created with the addition of a second dried piece of "stencil-and-scrape" paper, this one having been scraped with aqua acrylic paint.
The over-stamp of gold paint on the right side of the photo was a "ghost print" -- elsewhere on the same artwork, I had just used a stencil in the traditional way of applying (gold) paint thru a stencil with a sponge-topped stipple brush. While the leftover gold paint on the stencil was still moist, I pulled the stencil off the substrate, flipped it over and pressed it to this area, over the aqua collage paper.
This ghost print method is a form of monoprinting, stamping and transfering; I've seen all three labels applied to it. It keeps paint-waste to a minimum and it serves the purpose of helping create unity in the artwork by repeating a pattern ... doing so without using the exact same image, which could become boring to the viewer's eye. The flipping over reverses the original image; the fact that the paint is just leftovers creates the "ghost" effect, which further changes the design in a way that is likewise subtle. I like to make my artwork interesting in every part of the surface -- not equally interesting; I almost always want the focal point to stand out -- but I do want to "entertain the eye everywhere," to borrow a wonderful phrase from some other artist whose name I wish I could remember!
Altho it may not be immediately apparent, the gold ghost print was created using the same stencil (my
Kaleid
stencil, available at
www.StencilGirlProducts.com
) as what had been used earlier in creating the "stencil-and-scrape" collage paper on the far left. The viewer's eye may not immediately grasp this similarity, but the vaguely similar pattern will give the viewer a sense of satisfaction. The goal of unity in an artwork is, I think, to achieve this satisfaction.
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