Making Negative Marks with StencilGirl® Stencils

Hi there! It’s Marsha Valk, and I’m here today to share a new column with you!

This month’s StencilGirl® Creative Team Inspiration theme is Make Marks On It.

Marks are ‘the fingerprints of your art’ as the queen of mark-making, Rae Missigman, puts it in her beautiful book ‘Paint Play Explore’.

Marks are all the ways you try to put your own stamp on art. Over time the marks you make can develop into something personal and recognisable.

According to Rae, the key components for achieving this are your own carefully (or accidentally) curated collection of tools and mediums in addition to lots of experimenting and practice.

StencilGirl® stencils are excellent mark-making tools, and they are an essential element in my printmaking arsenal.

However, they are designed by the fab StencilGirl® designers and, they're available for all of us. So they're not unique to me. That’s why I always try to combine the use of stencils with something utterly ‘me’.

Mark making is an essential part of printmaking, and I have a particular fondness for subtractive methods.

You can add media with marks, but you can also mask, wipe, fade, bleach, cut, erase, carve or scratch it away.

Watch the video and see me experiment with negative mark-making using some of the tools and mediums in my toolbox!

Until next time!

Marsha Valk

Stencils used:
Mid-Century Modern Banners by Valerie Sjodin
Rounded Tiles by Andrew Borloz 
Exchange Place by Nathalie Kalbach
Manhattan by Nathalie Kalbach
Fragmented Line Columns by Cynthia Silveri
Stone Tilings by Valerie Sjodin
Mid Century Modern Vibe 2 by Jennifer Evans
Screw Heads Small by Andrew Borloz