Sunday, June 25, 2017

Frida Kahlo ATC Shrine with Guest Designer Belen Sotelo


A cheery hello to my fellow stencil lovers! Today I'm honored to be back on the StencilGirl blog as a Creative Team member and a Guest Designer.
If you follow me on Instagram you likely know that I'm a huge fan of Frida Kahlo. With both the day of her birth and the day of her passing coming up in July, I wanted to create an ATC shrine, or nicho as they're called in Spanish, dedicated to honoring her.


I started with some StencilGirl stencils, paints, clear glue, gesso, brushes and a shrine kit that I purchased from RetroCafe. If you're into woodworking you could likely whip one up on your own, but this girl... not so handy with the power tools, so buying a pre-fab kit was the way to go.
For the shrine itself, I used:
 The first step was assembling the shrine and gluing the pieces together.

Once put together, I let it sit for about 30 minutes to dry.

Meanwhile, I used some gel medium to adhere Frida head, that came included with the kit, onto the board backing.


I set that aside to dry as well.

At this point I wasn't yet entirely sure how I was going to decorate my shrine, but I knew it was going to be painted so I gave it a coat of gesso.
Side Note: If you are going to place items inside your shrine, you can paint and stencil your pieces before assembling them.

Once the gesso was dry, I gave it a couple coats of  paint. I chose to use an impasto because you get great coverage and you can see all of your brushstrokes. I thought it would add to the Mexican folk art look I was going for.

Next it was time to stencil! I used a cosmetic wedge to sponge on paint from the Pilgrimage to Mexico stencil.


Because this is a border stencil, it was easy to stencil on the design around the edge of my shrine.

On the back I used the Ornamental Compass Screen and set it aside to dry.


Since I knew that I was going to affix my ATC to the outside of my shrine, rather than place it inside, I measured and trimmed some card stock to size and gave it a coat of gesso.


I used a bit of washi tape to isolate the sections of my stencil that I wanted to use on my ATC.

At this point I'm just building layers, knowing that I may cover up some parts of the initial stenciling.



I decided to incorporate more stenciling so I reached some heavy body paints and a few more of my favorite stencils:



To add extra visual interest, I grabbed a water brush and my favorite mark making pens and pencil.

It wouldn't be complete without a quote from the great Frida Kahlo herself, so I typed one out and added it to my ATC. 



I used clear glue to affixed my completed ATC to the edge of the nicho, added the Frida head, and done!


Thanks for following along. I hope that my project has inspired you in at least some small way. 

Happy stenciling and of course, Viva la Frida!
XO,
Belen

7 comments:

  1. Gorgeous! Love your stencil and color choices, so perfect for a Frida tribute

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    1. Thank you so much, I had such fun with this project.

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  2. Awesome project and thanks for reminding of the anniversary dates, I love Frida!

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  3. Love the outcome, the colors, and the quote. Where can I purchase the small scribble stencil that you used inside the circle. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. Hi Julie, You can get the Travel Note Mini stencil by Rae Missigman here http://www.stencilgirlproducts.com/stencil-travel-note-mini-rae-missigman-p/m102.htm

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  4. This is just adorable! I love love love it! Thank you for sharing! :) Rae

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  5. This looks like so much fun, what a fun idea to spend a day on a weekend. Love Frida :)

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