Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Art is Good for You, a home decor piece by Sue Plumb




Hello stencil lover!

It's Sue Plumb here with you today to share my latest project for the StencilGirl Creative Team. Today's piece was created for our current "Home Decor" theme and as you may have already seen, the team have already been sharing some fabulous project ideas. For my take on this theme I decided to create a piece for one of my favourite areas of our house - my daughter's room. Now don't get me wrong, as she is almost a teenager and definitely not what you would call "tidy", I am not referring to the entire room. Rather, just her desk area where she sits to create her art. It's a lovely spot - beautiful white desk, great natural light from the window, and she has all her supplies readily at hand. (Quite unlike my own creative space, so yes, that is some jealousy talking!)

Here is my framed piece, entitled "Art is Good for You"...


I chose this message for my daughter as I am a firm believer that the creative process (in whatever form) is good for mental health, and I like to encourage her to follow her creative pursuits. I chose the colours for this piece based on what I knew she would like, and also because of some of the other colours in her room. 

To start, I began with an A4 size sheet of white cardstock and the Wall of Words stencil. I chose this stencil as I wanted to add some subtle text to the background and the happy and positive words made a perfect base. I didn't want the words to be too prominent though, so I chose a grey ink and applied it randomly using a dauber.


For my next layer, I chose the Random Circles stencil and a selection of Distress Oxides. Starting with "Picked Raspberry", this time I used an ink blending tool, and gently blended the ink onto the page through the stencil. I then repeated the process with the "Shaded Lilac", then filled in the final gaps on the page using "Tumbled Glass". I just love the way these three colours worked together on the page.


Look at the beautiful contrast from the crisp white pattern underneath once the stencil is removed...


Now it was time to add the focal point of my piece using the Art is Good for You stencil. I wanted to make it stand out from the busy background as much as possible, so I chose to use a black ink this time to help it pop. Again, I used a sponge dauber and sponged the ink gently through the stencil.


With the quote outline in place, now it was time for some more colour to help the letters really pop from the page. I chose another Distress Oxide "Peacock Feathers", swiped a little onto my craft mat, spritzed it with water and mixed it to make a paint. I then used a small brush to paint the colour onto the letters.


As you can see in the image above, I wasn't exactly precise when applying the colour to the letters, so some of the colour had dulled some of the black outline. To fix this, I grabbed a Sharpie and went back over the dull spots to blacken them again.


To add a little extra depth and interest to the lettering, I wanted to add some white highlights. For this step I used one of my favourite tools - a white correction pen.


The final step in my process was to add a few pretty little touches using some printed vellum flowers, leaves and a butterfly from Cocoa Vanilla Studio.


Once complete, I popped the piece into a frame and then placed it into my daughter's art space. She absolutely loved it! Look how gorgeous it looks sitting there...


Thanks for stopping by so I could share this with you. Until next time, happy creating!


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