Gingko and Bamboo Wall from my Asian series of Stencils

It was the gingko tree in my own backyard that inspired my 6"X6" stencil Gingko, and it's Jenn Mason at Cloth Paper Scissors magazine who teaches the inspired technique below.

I started with a page of old sheet-music that had previously been painted red (as a Gelli Plate print.)

Next, I used a sponge to cover the red paper with Pan Pastels (Yellow Ochre and Orange, blended together.)  Below is the pre-painted paper now coated with the pastels.

Having placed my 6"X6" stencil Gingko onto the paper, I held it in place with one hand, while using a pencil eraser to rub out the areas within the openings on the stencil.  Pan Pastel is easily erased this way.  It probably helped that when I had covered the original sheet-music with red acrylic paint, the paint had sealed the paper's surface.

Above:  The stencil -- stained with green and blue acrylics from a previous project, has been placed onto the paper and the eraser is ready to be used.

Above:  The eraser -- in the upper left corner -- has been used, and all the pastel inside the stencil's openings has been erased.

 After lifting off the stencil, I was rewarded with this:

Above:  This is a close-up of the same results.

To "fix" the pastel, so it wouldn't smear when touched, I used a squeegee to spread a thin layer of soft gel across the paper.  I learned this trick from Carolyn Dube, altho she has a slightly different approach and uses a Gelli Plate for getting the protective gel across the surface of paper treated with fragile media like Pan Pastel.

The gel did a great job of fixing the pastel.  And it slightly darkened the hue of the paper.

Once the protective gel had dried, I decided to highlight the ginkgo leaves with glitter pens --

My 6"X6" Gingko stencil is available here: 

http://www.stencilgirlproducts.com/product-p/s076.htm

I decided to try another subtractive/reductive technique taught by Jenn Mason -- and started with a calendar page covered with acrylic paint.

 
Once the pink paint had dried, I added a fresh layer of contrasting color -- Primary Cyan by Golden.

While the fresh paint was still wet, I placed the my 6"X6" stencil Bamboo Wall into it.  Holding the stencil in place with one hand, I used a baby wipe to clean out the openings in the stencil's design.

After lifting the stencil, I quickly flipped it over and pressed it to the pink paper next to the area I had just used for the reductive technique.  This gave a "ghost print" that will eventually be used as a background in a future project.

Above:  The original print is on the left and the ghost print is on the right.

My 6"X6" stencil Bamboo Wall is one in a series of Asian stencils I've created for www.StencilGirlProducts.com.

Happy Birthday

To make the above greeting card, I used a Sofft Sponge to press paint thru my 6"X6" Bamboo Wall.  (The orange letters were stick-ons, added later.)  I used a substrate of white cardstock and a variety of green-family acrylic paints.  

Two Stenciled Prints, Further Developed

In one of my March 29 posts, I showed multiple steps taken to create a print with my 6"X6" stencil Bamboo Wall and my 9"X12" stencil Two Fans.
Below is the Bamboo Wall print as it appeared at that time:

I could've stopped here.  But I decided to continue working on both pieces, first dribbling tar gel across the surface of both the fans (shown below, cut out) and the bamboo (not shown) --

After the tar gel dried, I made three separate glazes of liquid gloss medium mixed with three colors of acrylic paint.  These mixes were painted over the above prints, one color at a time, with dry-time between coats.

Then I cut out the smaller of the two fans and used it on the cover of a 6"X6" greeting card --

I also scanned the larger of the two fans, cut it out, and adjusted its color in Photoshop, with this result:

Next, I scanned my Bamboo Wall print and, likewise, altered its color in Photoshop:

Despite the altered colors, the squiggles of tar gel and the additional glazes are visible when you click on the above image to enlarge it. 

Another Ghost Print ...

... following on the tail of the ghost print in my post of a new minutes earlier, here is another ghost print, this time using my 6"X6" Bamboo Wall stencil:

This print was made on a previously halfway stained sheet of watercolor paper.  I plan to add more stain later.

A Take-Off on one of the Techniques by Jane Davies

I plan to take two workshops with Jane Davies in October -- one in S. Orange, NJ, and one online.

On Jane's blog --

http://janedavies-collagejourneys.blogspot.com/

-- you can find fantastic You Tube videos and lots of photos showing her projects and artwork.  Totally inspiring!  (Her DVD is great, too!)

I've taken the liberty of lifting one of her ideas and tweaking it, for experimenting with my 6"X6" stencil Bamboo Wall...

  ... and here is how that project went:

I started with two previously painted background papers, one mauve and one Magnesium Blue by Golden Fluid Acrylics.  Over each background, I used heavy-body yellow paint with an Ink Sweeper to twice-stencil Bamboo Wall, using the stencil in opposing directions; the next three photos show this step-by-step on the mauve background --

After the paint dried, I placed Post-It notes in selected areas across the stenciled imprints on both the blue and mauve backgrounds:

Next, I used the Gelli Plate to add a layer of translucent magenta to both pieces of paper.

When I lifted these papers off the Gelli Plate, the Post-Its remained on the Gelli Plate -- but that didn't matter; the results had been achieved.

One of the papers was, at this point, finished -- it's the blue-background one at far-left in my final photo.

I took the mauve-background paper a step further.  I added more Post-Its in a different design --

 

-- then, I used a sponge with a mix of matte gel and Golden's Payne's Gray acrylic paint to add a final layer in areas not masked by the Post-Its.
After I removed this second set of Post-Its, the paper was (at least for now) finished.

The results from the two Post-It experiments --