How To Make Paint Template Masks

The Fall 2018 issue of Material Newspaper Scissors is all nearly recycling materials for mixed-media art, which got me thinking about making custom stencils and masks from repurposed items. The great affair most custom stencils is that they can exist tailored to your project and your style. Today I'll show you a few easy ideas for making 1-of-a-kind stencils and masks that you tin can start using right away in your artwork.

making custom stencils and masks using recycled materials — Making custom stencils is then easy, and they tin add together a distinctive look to your artwork.

Making Custom Stencils with Plastic

We'll beginning with one of my favorite materials: plastic. Look around and you'll discover tons of items made of plastic or rubber that brand swell stencils: mesh produce numberless, sink and tub liners, placemats, and gloves. I found some plastic shelf liner with an open blueprint that I thought would exist great for stenciling. After prepping an art journal spread with clear gesso and letting information technology dry, I dabbed some acrylic paint onto a cosmetic wedge and rubbed it over the shelf liner in several spots on the page. Information technology looked so great I did the same with another colour.

When that was dry out, I cut my own stencil from cardstock, using a arts and crafts pocketknife. For more permanent custom stencils, you lot tin use stencil film with a craft knife or a stencil cutter. Only I felt like going old school and just cut random shapes with a knife. You lot can draw a design outset, simply I felt similar merely going for it, since the shapes were basic and abstract.

That design was stenciled in several areas on the page, once again using two colors. Since some of the acrylic paints I was using were translucent, layering colors gave me some cool furnishings.

I brushed some lime greenish paint in a few areas and, while it was even so wet, placed the cardstock stencil on superlative and wiped away the paint through the openings. This reverse stencil technique is facilitated by the gesso layer, so don't skip the gesso!

When I looked at the page, I realized it needed some darker values, so I spattered some magenta paint with a paintbrush.

Making Custom Stencils from Magazines

Some other really fun technique for making custom stencils is cut out images from magazines and catalogs. These images tin be people, animals, flowers and trees, piece of furniture–practically anything that'southward recognizable as a silhouette.

When yous're looking for images, focus on the outline and try to discern if information technology would make a good stencil. For people, I wait for artillery and legs separated from the body and clothing that isn't too voluminous. If yous're non sure if an image will brand a good stencil, trace the outline and then decide. For this image of a equus caballus, I removed the passenger and modified the tail.

Copy the image onto cardstock or lighter weight paper (sizing it larger or smaller if necessary), and cutting it out with a arts and crafts pocketknife.

I used an image from a fashion magazine as a mask, stenciling the design across the page. Using a corrective wedge and semi-opaque Payne's gray acrylic paint, I dabbed the paint but around the outline, so information technology wouldn't interfere with subsequent images.

Subsequently stenciling the horse image beyond the top several times, I went dorsum in with a paintbrush and more Payne's greyness and covered the areas in between the images.

When that was finished, I thought the piece need a little something more than. And so I drew white dots around some of the stenciled images with a white paint pen, then created little circles in diverse spots.

I dear the pop fine art wait of this and the fact that it was done with custom stencils and masks. I have tons of commercial stencils that I beloved using in my mixed-media art, only it's fun to create something unique and run across how it inspires y'all.

Two Quick Ideas for Custom Stencils

Employ real or faux leaves and flowers as masks. Here, I dry-brushed orange pigment onto a tag, so used a silk maple leaf as a mask, dabbing acrylic pigment around the outside with a corrective wedge.

Metallic gear embellishments were used as stencils for this tag. Two colors of spray pigment were applied over the stencils, and when dry, the gears were removed. Bonus: the gears got a boost from the pigment, too!