Art...: One of Many Resist Technique Approaches -- with Stencils

What is a "resist"? The word describes an area, or areas, on a substrate (paper, canvas, etc.) that will resist coverage by acrylic paint, ink, watercolor or any other liquid medium.

The degree of resistance varies -- with a twofold outcome.

First: Resist-treated areas stand out from their background.

Second: Because the degree of resistance varies, results are usually faintly tinted, with a mottled appearance; this makes for attractive details that coax a viewer's gaze to linger.

Many resist media exist -- white gesso and wax crayons, to name only two.

But for today's post, I decided to try it with two liquid-resistant pencils.

The first photo below shows a white Caran d'ache pencil, which I used to fill in leaf-shaped openings on my 9" x 12" stencil Ivy Frame. My substrate was a sturdy sheet of white paper. (You can click on each of today's images for enlargement, to better see details.)

Below: With the same stencil, on a new sheet of sturdy paper, I used a white grease pencil. These are also called China markers and the brand I happened to buy was Phano. If you click on the photo below, to enlarge it, you can easily see that the pigment stick broke. I was bearing down too hard!

After filling in a number of the ivy leaves, I poured some black gesso into a disposable foam plate and got out an old credit card. I dipped the card into the pool of gesso, then scraped the card across my substrate, as shown below.