Sunday scribbles #31: Testing out my first stencils.

So this week I actually started using my newly bought cutter. For those of you who are familiar with this: I bought the Silhouette Cameo 4. When creating the combinations for my solo exhibition last year, I had the feeling something was missing when they weren't combined with each other. I wanted to add something, but I didn't really know what.. the classic struggle of being an artist. I started looking at them more often, and I knew I loved combining paintings. So whatever I added, had to keep the possibility of making combinations. Suddenly it clicked. No idea why, but I was feeling the love when looking at my different Red-verses. A boy and a girl who are in love, yet apart! Yes, that's it! I need to add some more love to them. Two paintings, each representing one part of the love story.

My idea is to create a stencil of a girl, and a stencil of a boy, in somewhat of a romantic way. And they have to be young, yes. Cause what's more fun than being young and in love? The moment I found the romance on the right, I knew I wanted to try out with these. The first problem quickly occurred: which material to use to create these stencils? First I used some samples I got when buying the cutter itself. When trying paper I had to scramble all the pieces of my cutting mat because this one sticks too hard. So the paper quickly tore apart. Yes yes, I tried doing it without an adhesive cutting mat but that's an even bigger mess. Next I tried several non-adhesive vinyl materials. The cutting went well, but when spraying on them they moved a bit too much creating blurred lines. Nop, no good either. I was out of samples so I had to wait till the next day for the shop to open. If you ever wanted to try out something so bad and you had to wait, every minute is too long. When the next day arrived, I first completed a project for my main job, and heading home I stopped at the store to buy some new materials I could use to create stencils. They had stencil material!! Lol, why didn't I immediately buy this? I bought both the adhesive and non-adhesive stencil material, and transfer foil. Back home I first struggled to manage to get the cutting settings right for this stencil material, but after some crappy tries, I managed to get it right. I tried it out with spray paint, but I looked a big flat on the canvas. I wanted a structure which popped out subtle. Yes, I need to use some sort of medium, gloss or matte, and maybe some texturing paste. Back to another shop!

Okay, so we're back home, we know how to create the stencil, which material to use and how to add some structure. On to the real thing! I grab an old leftover painting and stick the stencil to it. I choose to use the gloss medium and start adding this on the stencil. When it's added, I take a spray can and smoothly add some color. Now I just need to wait a bit for the paint to dry and I can peel off the stencil. Ow boy, this is so much fun! It's still to be perfected, but seeing these results really got me buzzing! I tried it out with some texturing paste as well. This one I painted bronze, and I'm beyond stoked with how this one turned out! Even writing about this is getting me hyped, so I promise you there's A LOT in store.

Before removing the stencil: After removing the stencil:

After trying this out on and old leftover, I wanted to see if I could use the stencil on my regular paintings. I took one of my first paintings, and immediately tested it out, because it's important the adhesive of the stencil doesn't harm the painting. As I have said: I still have a looong way to go, but I've got some amazing ideas I will surely bring to life, mark my words!

In the meantime, here's a try with the cute young couple I mentioned earlier.