Tuesday, March 17, 2015

StencilGirl Guest Designer Cindy Shepard

Welcome to StencilGirl Guest Designer 

I love creating whimsical art, one of my favorite subjects is funky little houses. I often add eyeglasses, mustaches and wild trees and shrubs to jazz it up a little. The fun thing about whimsical art is how free I feel to add anything I want, to create with childlike enthusiasm and wild abandon. Stamps, stencils, paper, mark making, splashes of brilliant color...I use it all, many times applying paint with my hands.

Even though I use many tools one of my favorites is stencils, sometimes just one element of a stencil will call to me. When I saw the stencils I am using for this art piece my favorite elements looked like eyes, windows, roof tiles and foot paths, perfect for this piece titled “Company's Coming”



To begin I use watercolor paper with a coat of gesso. I then squirt a few drops of Golden Fluid Acrylic paint, spray with water and rotate the canvas to get just the right amount of drips.


 Using a sponge and a few colors of acrylic paints I randomly stencil onto the watercolor paper and add a few scrap pieces of napkins, adhering them with matte medium. I add even more of the stencil pattern with another paint color and continue mark making with additional colors of acrylic paint and paint brushes of various sizes.





 


Rather than paint my house onto the watercolor paper I use sketch paper to draw the image, this gives me an opportunity to audition the house...try out different sizes and styles. I cut it out and apply it to the watercolor paper with soft gel medium, adding a coat of gel medium over the image. To add texture I apply gesso to various areas of the house image. I also add strokes of the same color used on the art piece to the house image to allow those colors to peek through later.




I then finish painting the house with the main colors of the roof, house and windows. Blocking off certain areas I use the stencil to add what looks like tiles to the roof and adhere a mustache cut from black paper with matte medium. A black Sharpie paint marker is my absolute favorite way to outline the house and add embellishments...drawing in a little last minute shrub for the house with the marker. For finishing I apply two coats of Golden Gac 200.




Moral of this story...use your stencils with wild abandon!


 Visit Cindy on her blog HERE.


Stencils Used:



2 comments:

  1. Love the whimsy and your use of stencils!! Terrific design, Cindy!

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is so fun! I love all the colors and patterns in the background and how you were able to get the focal images to pop off the page. Beautiful!

    ReplyDelete

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