Wednesday, August 23, 2017

A Slightly Mad, Slightly Crazed Approach to Stencils

Hi, everyone! Darlene Olivia McElroy here!
As a mixed media artist and mad creative scientist, I like trying new crazy techniques to see if I can find possibilities that will work in my art. I have been using petroleum jelly with stencils for years but maybe you haven’t. You get a delightful grunge look, depending on your colors, that can look like batik.
I used a palette knife to spread the petroleum jelly over my Straight Stems stencil onto my abstract background. I removed the stencil then painted a green on top with a darker green mixed with a little dark blue and purple on top. Insane I know but it gave me a lovely batik look. Although you might think the paint will smear the jelly, it really doesn’t.
It is hard to tell when the paint is dry because the jelly remains shiny. So I do a touch test and then wait another 30 minutes. I start by scrapping off the jelly with my palette knife then take a rag and soap and water to remove the greasy feel. Once that is done, it is time to add more paint or collage elements. 

Butter Her Up
I was thinking about other products that might have that petroleum jelly consistency. Lard would have been perfect but that is long gone from my kitchen so I buttered up my Picket Fences stencil. After removing the stencil I painted the whole background with an opaque yellow. When dry, I removed the jelly and scrubbed it down with soap, water and a rag. I love it!

Oil Me Up, Baby
I use coconut oil (solid) for everything. I have it in the kitchen, in the bathroom and now in the studio. I thought it was worth trying it and I had a little abstract background on Yupo paper lying around. I used the same technique but with the coconut oil to two layers of the Mandala #1 stencil  - one in purple and another in Titan buff. I was unable to get the tight lines in the stencil but I am still happy with it. Then I layered the same stencil I used for the butter resist with an opaque yellow. Think I will try this one again in the future but on an absorbent surface. Hope this inspired you to experiment.

Have fun playing outside the box.

1 comment:

  1. That is fascinating. Was there a noticeble diference with the different oils??

    ReplyDelete

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