StencilGirl Guest Designer Lisa Myers Bulmash

Welcome to StencilGirl Guest Designer 

Lisa Myers Bulmash!!!

Oh, hey there! I’m Lisa Myers Bulmash, and I make collages and altered books. Mind if I show you how much fun I had with StencilGirl’s Crackle stencil?

Recently, I used the stencil to add texture on the edges of a mounted altered book. Take a look at the piece before I incorporated the crackling: interesting, but it just doesn’t feel finished. More to the point, it looks too NEW.

I like old, textured stuff: naturally weathered, aged with patina solution, deliberately distressed… it doesn’t matter. So I scraped molding paste onto the book mounting board, using corners of the Crackle stencil.

I wanted the crackling to go from larger chunks to tiny crumbles, with varying thicknesses.

But again… too pristine for me. So I toned it down with a wash of Van Dyke Brown paint.

And now, the final result:

I also used the Crackle stencil to simulate crumbling plaster on an aging apartment wall. This collage was inspired by the Tenement Museum in New York.

The StencilGirl folks aren’t kidding when they say their products are addictive! I had to restrain myself from completely covering two collage portraits with the Flemish Bond brick wall stencil. You can see how the portraits turned out on my blog. And if you’ve used either stencil, let me know – I’d love to see what you did with them!

Lisa MyersBulmash is a mixed media artist who works primarily with acrylics, paper and found objects. The artist’s work and commentary have been highlighted in five books, including the upcoming A World of Artist Journal Pages, edited by Dawn DeVries Sokol (due in spring 2015). She lives north of Seattle with her husband and two young children. You can find her on Facebook and follow her on Pinterest.

Stencils Used:

Crackle