Leaf it to StencilGirl Products!

I truly love autumn colors -- nature's confetti that falls from trees and bounce-dances with the wind across my driveway.

Leaves are all around us ... even in arid areas, some succulents sport leaves ... so common that we may tend to take them for granted.  But there is beauty in each and every unique leaf.    

And I find leaves in a lot of my StencilGirl stencils and masks.  Below is my very first try at a pour (on a 12" x 12" stretched canvas) -- and the colors came out so dismally dark that I knew I needed to go a step farther, to save it.  As Mary Beth Shaw has shown in one of her many inspirational videos*, a dark background makes a light image "pop" ... so from her I got the idea to use my 6" x 6" stencil Silhouette of a Wildflower Bouquet stencil with white acrylic paint to create the artwork below.  Is this the final version?  I'm not sure.  I may come back in to add pale tints of color to the larger areas of white.

When I designed my 9" x 12" Garden Montage stencil, which I used in making the print below, leaves combined with flowers to make overall connections within the design:

Leaves of my beloved, but now deceased, mimosa tree were the basis for both my 6" x 6" Mimosa stencil as well as its 9" x 12" Mimosa "big sister."  The next string of images was each created with these two stencils ....

Above:  printed with 6" x 6" Mimosa stencil

Above:  printed with 6" x 6" Mimosa stencil

Above:  printed with 6" x 6" Mimosa stencil, used repeatedly across the paper.

Above:  acrylic paint was added over modeling paste imprinted with both stencils used together.

Above:  both stencils were used with Golden High Flow acrylics as well as bottled spray paint.

Above:  this print was made entirely with 9" x 12" Mimosa.

And -- believe it or not! -- it was a spike-leaved plant at Longwood Gardens (Kennet Square, PA) that inspired me to design my 6" x 6" stencil Sassy Spray, which I used in making the prints below --

*One of my favorite videos by Mary Beth Shaw is here.  Great ideas for "popping" images ... and to my delight, she shows a two-page spread in her art journal that she has embellished (along the tops of the pages) with dark paint and my 6" x 6" stencil Pressed Leaves.  I really like the look when a stencil is used partially, while another part of the design "falls" off the edge of the paper.

6" x 6" stencil Pressed Leaves

  
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