Good morning! (Is it morning where you are? It’s morning here… the coffee is in my cup, the fuzzy critters are fed, the sun is poking through the clouds, my brain is slowly waking up).
Today I wanted to share with you two things; First is my process for making this piece:
The second is a vignette about getting past feeling like you can’t do art by using stencils.
Ok, for my page, I started by pulling up a reference pic I took of one of the adorable little Frenchies I had the pleasure of pup-sitting earlier this month.
I loosely sketched out her face in pencil as best I could, then went over it in my black Stabilo ALL pencil (sorry, I forgot to take a picture of this step). I picked up leftover pieces of “bleeding tissue paper” our neighbor brought over the other night to play with. It’s a neat way to get somewhat controlled color onto a background… anyway, I placed mostly oranges and pinks over the entire page & misted with water to activate the ink. I used my heat tool to dry it so the paper flaked off, leaving the color behind. The water also activated the ALL pencil, causing the image to bleed a bit.
I went over the drawing with my ALL pencil to make it darker again.
I didn’t have much background left to work with around the face, but I knew I wanted something there. I traced & cut out a mask to keep the stenciling off the focal image, and used a light blue stamp pad with the Strumpet Stencils Grungy Bricks Mortar stencil.
I dried the whole image again with my heat tool, and added the details to her eyes and nose with my trusty Uni-ball Signo white gel pen. More heat to help dry the fresh ink.
I then dug out my Strumpet Stencils Be Love stencil. I though it totally worked as both a message of love, and it fits Sugar’s personality perfectly. I used heavy gel so the final stencil won’t obscure the dog’s image, and left it to dry overnight.
Ok. So I also promised to tell you about using stencils to overcome a fear of doing art that’s “not good enough”.
For years, YEARS, I’ve been trying to get my wife to do art with me. I’ve tried getting her to do abstract stuff, collages, painting, you name it. She’d start something, get frustrated, then toss it… when I started my stint on the Strumpet Stencils Design Team, she suddenly began getting interested in the stencils I was receiving. They were finally something that not only interested her, but she felt she could use to make a piece of art she was happy with. Her favorite stencil so far has been the uterus one (she recently went through treatment for uterine cancer, so it fit right in with what we were trying to deal with in the moment. She’s been given the all clear just last week, and is cancer free. Woot woot!)
Anyway, so she pulled out a bunch of art supplies one day while I was out and about. I came home to a huge art mess, and I was so excited to see her playing and happy with the process! She was covered in paint (so was the living room) and lost in her work. Once she finally noticed I was home, she looked up long enough to tell me that I should have given her stencils earlier. She said they took away her fear of “screwing up” and allowed her to feel like the art she was creating actually looked good.
She used the Strumpet Stencils Sigil stencils, the uterus stencil, and the background hearts(along with some other stencils we have from various designers) to create a “Thank You” piece for her oncology team. I think it came out awesome, and it helped her break out of her fears around creating.
So if you’re ever feeling intimidated by art, head on over to Strumpet Stencil’s etsy shop to pick up a bunch of stencils you want to try. Then, go to town with them & make beautiful art! You can’t go wrong
Hell, head on over there even if you’re not intimidated. There’s lots to choose from. Use code STRUMPETCHRISSY for sweet savings too!
