STENCIL BLOG HOP

Thanks for joining me on Terri Stegmiller's Stencil Blog Hop!  Eight amazing artists are sharing their creative techniques with Terri Stegmiller's new line of stencils, produced by Stencil Girl Products.  Each day of the hop you will see two new stencils (14 in all) being used by an inspiring artist.  I am sooooo excited to be a part of this Stencil Blog Hop as I am a big fan of Terri's!!!

Be sure to leave a comment on this post and you will be entered for a chance to win your own set of the two stencils that I used here.  The winner will be drawn one week from today.  To be eligible to win you must provide contact information if you don't have your email associated with your comment ID.

And also be sure to visit all the other artists participating in the Stencil Blog Hop.  You can enter on every post for more chances to win some of Terri's great stencils!

Blog Hop Schedule:
Sunday, Jan. 20 (Kickoff) - Terri Stegmiller, http://stegart.blogspot.com/
Monday, Jan. 21 - Leslie McNeil, http://marvelesartstudios.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, Jan. 22 - Deborah Boschert, http://deborahsjournal.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, Jan. 23 - Margaret Applin, http://www.margaretapplin.com/
Thursday, Jan. 24 - Brenda Gael Smith, http://serendipitypatchwork.com.au/blog/
Friday, Jan. 25 - Vicki Welsh, http://www.vickiwelsh.com/
Saturday, Jan. 26 - LuAnn Kessi, http://luannkessi.blogspot.com/
Sunday, Jan. 27 - Sue Bleiweiss, http://suebleiweiss.com/blog/

Find Terri's stencils online at Stencil Girl Products (http://stencilgirlproducts.com/)

Today, I'm playing with Terri's "Leaves" and "Squiggles" stencils and I'm having a blast using my Liquitex spray paints! I love these paints as I can use them inside and not worry about fumes or air quality.  These paints are low odor and non-toxic.  Of course, I wish I had the entire line of sensational colors but I'm limited to 7 or 8 for now.  The whole line is sold at Michaels.

I started with Terri's Squiggles stencil and un-primed watercolor paper.  The spray paints work well straight out of the can.  Here you can see I kept layering the stencil and spraying lighter and darker in different areas. The dark area is where I sprayed the stencil first and then printed with it in a reverse print.  These spray paints are really easy to direct to specific areas as you can see the few I had sprayed in blue.  You have much more control than when you use the spray inks.

Once the paint dried, I went over the entire piece with some of my screen-printed images on deli paper.  The deli paper melts right into the background and you can see the shapes from the stencil through the deli paper that's not painted on.  Very cool!!!

Based on how I applied the stencil, different variations of the print showed through my screen-printed deli paper and it just added so much interest to the background.

Here is the full page of my collage.  It still needs something...but I love this stencil for the background!!!

I also played with the Squiggles stencil on a couple of journal pages.  I had lots of fun with my Sharpie marker making hash marks over the white spray painted images.  I'm still going to work on that one as well.

On this one, I used one of my new Sharpie stain markers (yellow) to add more emphasis around the squiggles towards the back to help make the squiggles look like they were floating.

My favorite stencil was Terri's "Leaves", which is no surprise since I use many leaves in my own artwork. I had loads of fun spraying with this stencil and layering the colors.  I chose to outline the leaves with different weight Pitt pens and heavier strokes on the blue leaves as they were more solid in color and popped out more.  

What I really want to do with this picture is scan it and play with more layers in Photoshop Elements!!

The technique I love the most using the stencils so far is spraying the entire stencil first and printing it down against the paper.  While the stencil is still in place, spray a different color through the stencil and Viola!  You have a beautiful clean layered image and background in one shot!

I love how sometimes if you scribble, it looks like you are a real sketch artist LOL.  This is such a gorgeous little piece and I want to frame it!

This last little piece was actually my pressing paper when I flipped over the stencils to spray again, plus a few extra secret stencils I was playing with of my own that have not hit the Stencil Girl site yet :)))))

I will be building this one out as well but I know this needs to be translated digitally just so I can see what happens to all those crazy layers in Photoshop Elements!

Thank you, Terri!!  Keep up the great stencil designing!!  

Don't forget to check out the rest of the Stencil Blog Hoppers and don't forget to leave a comment so you can be entered to win Terri's "Leaves" and "Squiggles" stencils!!!

Margaret