Combining Drawings with StencilGirl® Stencils by Margaret Peot

Combining Drawings with StencilGirl® Stencils by Margaret Peot

With StencilGirl® stencils and a few simple tools, you can add texture, depth and interest to simple black and white line drawings. Since we are sheltering in place in our studios without trips to the art supply store, I tried to use just a few tools that you might already have around. I have found that drawing personal memories has been a warm and reassuring way to manage in these anxious times.

If you don’t have a giant black paint marker (thanks to Josh Bayer for introducing them to me—they are great drawing tools), you can use black paint and a brush or any kind of wide-nib black marker. For these drawings, I scanned drawings and printed out multiples onto Rives BFK that I cut into 8.5 x 11 inch pieces that will go through my printer. I did this so I could try different things on the same drawing, but you can do these techniques directly onto your original drawings, of course. The StencilGirl® stencil that ended up being the workhorse of this project was my Impressionist Brush Textures. The four different textures could be almost anything I needed them to be. I also used Daniella Woolf’s Spring Garlic a lot: a good grassy, reedy texture stencil.

Many thanks to my husband Daniel Levy for his video making skills and beautiful original music!

You will need:

• Molotow ONE4ALL 15mm black acrylic marker (or black gouache or acrylic paint and a brush)
• White paint (I used Daler and Rowney Pro White for its super-opaque-ness, but you could use white acrylic or gouache)
• a couple different black pens of different widths
• a brush
• a tiny natural sponge (optional)
• blue painters tape
• printer paper

StencilGirl® stencils I used:

• ImpressionistBrush Textures
• Impressionist Water Lily Background
• Scattered Flowers Background
• Scattered Bunnies, Blooms and Birds Background
• Black Birds in Trees Stencil
• Spring Garlic