9" x 12" PALM FRONDS SILHOUETTE L791 Possibilities...

Now that 9" x 12" L791 Palm Fronds Silhouette has been released at StencilGirl --

-- I'm looking over past projects that had put to use my 6"X 6" mask Palm Fronds Silhouette Small and my 4"X 4" mask Palm Fronds Silhouette Mini -- poking around to see what went well before this series became three in number, with the advent of L791 Palm Fronds Silhouette (9" x 12").  Previous ideas can be launching pads for new projects -- this time, bringing together all three in my palm-fronds series.

The masks used below are my 6"X 6" mask Palm Fronds Silhouette Small and my 4" x 4" mask Fern Fronds Silhouette Mini.

Resist techniques are among my special favorites.  Please pardon the wrinkles in the first photo below.  Those happened because I had started with (cheap) foreign newsprint, then, as a last step, had covered it with a coat of acrylic gloss medium gel.  In hindsight, I know I should have used illustration board, or some other smooth rigid substrate.  

My starting step had been to cover a sheet of that foreign newspaper with a coat of amber translucent acrylic paint.  After that'd dried, I added a layer of contrasting color using Pan Pastels --

After that, I set two of my masks onto the surface ....

... and, while holding them down with one hand, I used an old terry washcloth to rub away Pan Pastel color from the exposed areas within the masks.

Above:  the substrate after the rubbing and the removal of the stencils.

The last step was to spread the glossy gel medium across the surface of because I wanted a fixative to keep the Pan Pastel color intact.  This topcoat of glossy gel medium also darkens and enriches all colors it covers. 

To avoid smearing the Pan Pastels when adding this kind of fixative, I took the time to secure the paper to my work surface with masking tape.  Next, I added a long ridge of the gel all the way down the side of the imprints.  Then I spread it in one smooth stroke -- just one swipe -- using a 12-inch-wide taping knife from a house-paint supply store.  It was important to go over the surface only once because two or more swipes would have smeared the pastels.

 The placement of the gel and the scraping tool are shown here, where I used the same approach in a different project. 

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