Good Day!
My goal for this
presentation is to show you how I use StencilGirl® Stencils and the process I
went through to be able to re-use the same stencil within a series but
producing a new feel to the pieces.
My name is Alexandra
Treadaway-Hoare (as in Hoar Frost). I was born in S.E. Asia, of Canadian
Parents, educated in North Africa, Europe, UK, and Canada. I spent my adult
years in the Corporate World in Canada and the US.
Ten years ago, I started serious Art Studies
in my chosen medium of Watercolor, under David Daniels at The Smithsonian
Institute, and continue to study under his tutelage. As of five Years ago I
have been a professional Artists. I have earned 4 Honorable Mentions from
Juried shows over the last two years from regional, national and international
competitions. I have had two One Woman Shows and will be in a Two Women Show
October 2 & 3 2021 at The Yellow Barn in Glen Echo Park.
Three years ago, I was
introduced to ‘StencilGirl®’ stencils and now they are in a sizeable number of
my works.
I painted a series of Birds using StencilGirl®
stencils as the background:
I also painted a series of flowers using StencilGirl® stencils as the background:
In the next painting I used a 12x24”
StencilGirl® Stencil where I used only Tertiary colors in the background:
Swallowtail’s FeastMuch as I enjoyed using
the stencils, I was finding one problem…… I was not having much success
re-using the same stencils no matter what the subject of my painting!
So here are my thoughts
as I completely changed how I used the same StencilGirl® stencil.
I went back to my Flowers
series…….
First, I chose the flower, a rich deep purple (*Amethyst Genuine/Cobalt Violet) lily and I tinged the leaves to reflect the flower resulting in a strong purple central focus! I lightly sprayed the back of my Black Birds in Trees Invert Stencil by Kimberly Baxter Packwood with Krylon Easy-Tack, let it dry and placed it over the central focus. Now I filled in the blank areas with different values of yellow (*Permanent Yellow Deep), being very careful not to paint over the purple flower or leaves. I let it dry and peeled off the stencil. I now had blank white areas depicting branches and birds. Choosing to cover my paper with paint, I chose a pale blue (*Duochrome Cabo Blue), to represent the sky.
Now to use the same
stencil to achieve a very different ‘look’!
I stayed within my flower motif, this time starting with my version of a few humble Dandelions, which I painted yellow (values of *Hansa Yellow Medium) and added green stems and made-up leaves. I laid the still tacky (months later!!) stencil over the central flower. I then took a ‘Micron” pen with archival black ink in a size 0.3 (felt like nib) and outlined the StencilGirl® stencil Black Birds in Tree l. Again, I peeled off the Stencil. Now I had a lot of white paper, my version of dandelions and black line drawings! I started by painting the tree branches brown (*Raw Siena & Burnt Umber) and added sporadic green (variety on my palette) shoots at some of the branch ends and painted in just the visible beaks of the birds (brown as above).and stopped! What I believed I now had was a minimalist representation of flower and flight!
In this experimental
piece for me, you’ll notice a bird head in lower left corner that had to have
the ‘brown bark’ sponged away… I did want the birds head to be in back of the
trunk, but the black ink showed thru, so I ‘fixed’ it. In the same general area
you’ll spot a brown smudge; I knew that I couldn’t get it out so I added a
stroke to imply a beak and left it alone!
The most powerful lesson
that I learnt was to allow myself to leave white space in my painting!
All paint colors are Daniel Smith watercolor tube paints.
What a fabulous blog! The paintings are all exquisite! Thank you!
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