The VOICES of StencilClub go Into the Woods

Greetings and Salutations! Carol Baxter here and I am pleased to bring you a whole bunch of captivating projects by our StencilClub Voices!

This month, Mindy Flannigan, Michelle Pierron, Kelly Rish and yours truly took a mixed media walk Into the Woods!

Drawing Trees

Mindy Flannigan writes, "I've loved drawing trees since I was young. On multi-media paper I used distress inks for background, acrylic paint, gel/watercolor pens and a Micron pen for details on the rocks. I love the grid patterns."

Art Journal Pages

Michelle Pierron picked and chose parts of each Into the Woods stencil that spoke to her for these art journal spreads.

You Need to Love Yourself

Michelle writes, "I way trying to focus on the fact that I see myself and others in social media say so many negative things about themselves that I know they would never say to someone else. I hate that we find it so easy to bash our bodies, our spirits, our abilities, so I made this page to remind me that I have to love myself first. If I wouldn't say a comment I think about me to another human being regarding them, then its not worth saying to myself!"

Be Strong and Fight for What You Want in Life

Michelle used her favorite part of the set, the leaves on the small stencil, along with some affirmations she was given to create this art journal page. 

"I especially loved the look of them against the color of craft paper when I used some yellowish green paint."

"It doesn't have to be good; its not going in a museum. It just has to get across a feeling I have."

Vase with Flowers

Michelle traced one of the images from the 6x6 stencil and rotated it to make it into a flower shape and put them in a vase cut out from some scrapbook paper. 

She writes. "Honestly, its not an amazing or hard page, but it makes me smile every time I look at it, and it makes me think about other options I have to use this idea. I could easily see it put on an apron or skirt or even on a wooden panel and hung on the wall."

Mixed Media Tags, Collage Paper, & Journal Spread

Technique using a manilla tag and Tim Holtz Distressed Paint: 

Kelly found a magazine page with a saying she liked for the tag.  

Kelly writes,"We recently lost someone dear to our family. This tag evolved as I began to put a care package together. 

Technique on mini Gelli plates:

• Mini stencil as the base with 2 colors of Pueblo Paint (for its nice shimmer)
• Added the leaves from the small stencil in a coppery color
• Covered the whole tag in watered down gesso (I forget the color)
• base 
• Added flat fabric flowers, and a sticker

Art Journaling 

Technique in my Dina Wakley journal:

• Golden High flow acrylics for background
• Versemark Ink, embossing powder and added a layer of pouring fluid over the embossed trees
• Detailed with Dewerts Intense Ink pencils

Collage Papers

Green Pinecones Page Technique on 140lb watercolor paper: 

• Trace stencils with Masking fluid via Fineliner and let dry
• Coat entire page with black gesso and let dry (I don't use the heat gun on this, because it can cause the masking fluid to melt or loose the outline of the stencil)  
• Paint down a layer of Absorb ground mixed with water over the black gesso and let air dry completely
• Add 2 or 3 colors of Golden Fluid acrylics (High Flow would probably work too) 
• Kelly's tip #1 "I keep turning my paper, letting the brush marks go all ways. I don't think about it, I just play."
• Let that air dry.  
• Kelly's tip #2: "Then. with my nail, I rub off the masking fluid lines,and it's done."  

She says, "You can make 1 beautiful piece or, because I wanted to practice with the stencils, I will cut up and use pieces of this paper in other things."  

You will need watercolor paper, Golden Fluid Acrylics, a fineline pen or paintbrush and a glaze to create this yellow, purple and turquoise collage paper:

• Draw random circles and outline with Golden Fluid Acrylics
• Tip: Add Gesso as you go
• Sponge stencils inside circles
• Use a Dewarts intense ink black stick with a water brush to shade inside the circles
• Use black paint and the leafy part of the small stencil in between the circles
• WHite around some circles in fineline paint
• Glaze over entire paper with a mixture of half satin glaze and half raw umber, wait a minute or two and rub off excess with baby wipe.

Kelly says: "I have not done that glazing the process on watercolor paper before, but it worked ok. I got that grunge look, verses a stark white background." 

Pink Trees Art Journal Cover

Carol greeting you again. Some months back I was playing with a bleach pen on Kraft Tex Fabric paper and it dyed it yellow in places and white in others so I figured I would give it another try.

If it had stayed yellow, as it looked while drying, I would have left the trees yellow and added just a few ink marks for the bark.

I used a crayon for the the tree bark. 

I wanted to see what would happen if I used the bleach pen on a collage sheet and bit of scrap paper (both painted with acrylics) so I dug through my scraps and found ones that were mostly the color of the leaves and nest I wanted and used parts of the small stencil. Not quite before the leaves were dry, I used a regular ink pen to add some definition before I cut the leaves and nest out and glued them down. 

Nothing has hatched from the giant blue nest yet...

Thanks for checking out what our StencilClub Voices members created! We all hope you are inspired to take to your own "studios" with Into the Woods by Suzi Dennis.