Fancy Houses with Frieda Oxenham

When the December 2018 StencilClub stencils, called Fancy Houses, arrived it made me feel quite nostalgic.  They featured houses that could have stepped straight from the streets of Amsterdam, the city where I was once a student many moons ago. Of course I simply had to use them in a project and this is the resulting page.

Here is the full step by step tutorial:

1.      Gesso a piece of 9 x 12” hot pressed watercolor paper (300gr).

2.      Using a variety of Distress ink pads and a brayer stencil circles all over the page using StencilGirl® stencil Central Avenue (why not add a bit of New York to Amsterdam?!).

3.      Rub Distress Glaze all over the page (I used my fingers but a brush will also work). Remove the excess glaze with a paper kitchen towel. This makes the Distress ink permanent.

4.      Paint over the background with transparent paint. I used watered down Cobalt Blue from Golden. Add extra paint around the edges.

5.      Spray houses from the large stencil of the December 2018 StencilClub onto deli papers.  I used the Moonshadow Violacious spray paint.  Spray on fixative to make it permanent.

6.      Cut out the houses (varying the heights) and glue onto the background made in step 2 using matte medium to adhere the deli paper.

7.      Using copy papers spray through all the stencils of the December 2018 StencilClub  using a variety of colors of permanent spray paint. When finished with one color, turn the stencil over and create a reversed image on another sheet of paper. I used a mixture of both for the next step.

8.      Cut out the various elements of the buildings and audition combinations you like on the page.

9.      Fill in the white in the houses with a brown fine Sharpie permanent marker.

10.  Glue on your selected elements of the houses onto the page as shown. I used regular gel matte for this step.  A streetlight from the large stencil was also added.

11.  Outline inside the buildings with a white permanent marker and on the outside with a sepia one.

12.  Glue on postage stamp.

13.  Spray trees onto deli paper using brown and green permanent spray paint and Winter Trees Bark.

14.  Tear out trees and adhere to page as shown using matte medium.

15.  Outline trees with permanent sepia marker.

16.  Print out text, cut out, edge with a brown inkpad and glue on. I used a quotation by Sasha Martin (Life from Scratch) that reads: ”I don’t think the homesickness of a perpetual wanderer can ever by quenched.”

17.  Edge the page with a brown permanent ink pad.

© Frieda Oxenham 2019. To see more of Frieda's work, please visit her BLOG.