Thursday, June 18, 2015

New Stencil Release from June Pfaff Daley and StencilGirl Road Trip USA!


Do you love to travel the good old US of A????
Then have we got the stencils for YOU today!!!
7 NEW stencils 
from 
StencilGirl Artist
Introducing....Road Trip USA!
June is here with a tutorial to show you what she did with the new stencils and then at the bottom of the post you will get a better look at each stencil. 

Hi it is June Daley--I.Am.So.Excited. This stencil release is one of my favorites even though I can’t lay claim to designing Ohio or any of the other 49 states. United State borders were drawn up centuries ago and often somewhat arbitrarily to coincide with topography or latitude and longitude lines. The beautiful diversity of these shapes across North America in stencil form make for some gorgeous possibilities to celebrate state pride or simply play with the shapes themselves. I feel like I’ve needed these stencils forever especially with the explosion of trending state art. From bumper stickers that spell HOME with the O in the shape of Ohio, to t-shirts proclaiming state pride, to state art for hanging--states are HOT!

A big part of designing these stencils was spent just thinking. And even though I am a really good over thinker on just about everything, these stencils really got some extra thought to get ‘em right. Questions like how do I provide all 50 states in the least amount of stencils possible? How do I choose which states make up one stencil? How big should the states be? How does itty bitty Rhode Island show next to gigantic Texas? What if I want them all to fit together, but still be able to use my brother’s state of Vermont (when scaled to Alaska) to make something cool that isn’t the size of a postage stamp? How to identify one state from the other? How to make each stencil a stand-alone purchase with as much packed into the stencil for multiple uses? I mean, I really made my head hurt.
With these looming questions, I tackled the project as so: I made all states to scale using the largest states as a starting point. I broke the states up into five regions: South, New England/Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, West and Southwest. I further divided the west into two stencils. The entire USA can be had in 6 total stencils. I provided the smaller states in the New England/Mid-Atlantic stencil at 200% in scale, in addition to 100% in relation to Texas so these states could be used for stand-alone projects.

Each stencil includes fun geographic locators and map symbols to mark destinations or provide icons along the journey. Finally, each state has a stencil abbreviation included, in case like me, you don’t know your North Dakota state shape from your South Dakota state shape. I’ve been working with the final product for a couple of weeks now and couldn’t be happier with the end result. I hope you will too.


To give perspective the entire USA is laid out above on a 24” x 24” square canvas. The dimensions using these stencils pieced together to form the USA will be approx. 22.5” x 12.5”. I stenciled from the center states out.
For this Texas piece, I used an 8” x 8” canvas. The stencil shape of Texas is approximately 6” x 6”. I stenciled  using a combination of burnt umber and quinacridone/nickel azo gold acrylic paint. I left the center a bit translucent. I then added wax pastels. I outlined the states with neon gelly roll pens. (This is the same technique I used for each state in the larger USA piece as well.)
  
I pulled the colors on my palette from gorgeous road maps that served as my inspiration and staring point.


Above is the completed Texas art. How cool would it be to have a wall with 50 of these?!
In the upcoming weeks, I will be sharing additional projects to provide even more inspiration with this collection including how my kids are using these stencils as a learning tool and how I’m using them to stitch and journal our summer road trips. Until then, happy travels!

June Pfaff Daley is a mixed media artist who creates with everything from wood to fabric. She enjoys transforming thrift store treasures and favors whimsical motifs. June resides in Cincinnati, Ohio with three fantastic kids, one supportive husband, a darling dog and a charming cat. Visit her website.

Ready to see the stencils up close??
(6) 9" x 12"



 (1) 6" x 6"

9 comments:

  1. Wow! What an undertaking! And what a good solution to the size problems with the smaller states!

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  2. Wonderful idea -- and so useful, too! Great art!

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  3. Love these! And your map art is just beautiful! They're all in my shopping cart :D

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  4. These are great, love the examples

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  5. These are awesome. I can see how your thought process on figuring out how to design these stencils hurt your head. WOW! !! I can't wait to get these. First, my daughter is a competitive Irish dancer and the North American Irish dance Association splits the US into the same regions as you split your collection. So using these to embellish the journal I made to document her dance journey and all her travels is absolutely perfect. Second, we homeschool, so these will be a really fun way to do geography projects and even US History projects. Your projects you demonstrated in your post are really amazing as well.
    thehogan7 (at) gmail (dot) com

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  6. These are awesome. I can see how your thought process on figuring out how to design these stencils hurt your head. WOW! !! I can't wait to get these. First, my daughter is a competitive Irish dancer and the North American Irish dance Association splits the US into the same regions as you split your collection. So using these to embellish the journal I made to document her dance journey and all her travels is absolutely perfect. Second, we homeschool, so these will be a really fun way to do geography projects and even US History projects. Your projects you demonstrated in your post are really amazing as well.
    thehogan7 (at) gmail (dot) com

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  7. Thank you so much everyone for your comments! And Kimberly I LOVED hearing how they will work well for your various uses (journaling AND homeschooling)! Stay tuned to the SG blog as next week my 10-year-old will show how she used the stencils to study her states!

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