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Monday, December 3, 2018

Guest Designer Frieda Oxenham: 365 Art Cards with StencilGirl® Products

The end is in sight. The 365 3" x 3” art cards I’m making this year as part of the #365somethings2018 project are almost done, but there is one last way of making them that I wanted to share here as my final project this year for StencilGirl® Products.

Whenever I’m working in my studio, I do so on a layer of newsprint sheets that I use to clean my stencils, capture the spray paint that doesn’t quite hit the page I’m working on, roll off the excess paint on my brayers, try out if I have enough ink on my stamps etc. Eventually the top newsprint sheet is completely covered and I remove it to reveal a fresh one.

The removed sheet (I refer to it as underpaper) very often looks better than anything I have created purposefully, partly because true randomness is very hard to create and partly because I’m far less precious about it. The last time I removed a sheet it struck me how it would make great art cards and because the newsprint is very thin, I simply adhered pieces of it onto the cards.

I began to wonder if I could make such randomness intentionally (a real oxymoron!). This is what I did:

1.      Using a newsprint sheet (very absorbent) I sprayed it with permanent acrylic spays using StencilGirl® stencils Leaf Zen Landscape, Meadows and Hamburg. Be sure to also turn over the wet stencils after spraying and wipe them on the newsprint sheet.

2.      Brayer on a selection of paint colors randomly.

3.      Stamp on imagery using a black permanent Archival ink pad.

4.      Stamp on text using a black permanent Archival ink pad.

5.      Splatter on acrylic ink in a variety of colors, including white.

6.      Stencil with white titanium paint through stencil Leaf Zen Landscape.

7.      Stencil on text, using I Get To Choose as well as pattern using Leaf Zen Landscape, both with black gesso.

8.      Splatter on some more acrylic ink in whatever colors you fancy.

9.      Select some acrylic paints (including some metallic ones)  as well as spray paints, and stencil on the sheet using stencils Soulful Scribbles Dots Dash, Hamburg, and Stylized Fireworks.

You can continue alternating all the steps above in any order you like till the sheet looks satisfactory to you. Don’t forget you can always add more once the sheet has been cut up and glued to the cards.

10.  Take a 3 x 3” card, cover with soft matte get. Press to the back of the newsprint sheet, cut out around the card and brayer the top to prevent wrinkles. Then also add soft matte get to the top of the card. Let dry thoroughly.

I don’t select specific areas but simply use up the sheet and work with what appears on each card.

11.  Outline some patterns and words on the cards with black, white and coloured markers.

12.  Cut out words, edge with a permanent archival ink pad and glue onto the cards.

13.  Edge cards with a permanent ink pad in colors matching each individual card.
These cards will be date stamped and then numbered to become part of my #365somethings2018 project. You can see all the individual cards on my Instagram feed.

This is my final StencilGirl® project for this year but the good news is that I’ll be back as Monthly Guest Designer in 2019. Have a lovely and arty Holiday Season!

© Frieda Oxenham 2018. To see more of Frieda's work, please visit her BLOG.

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