How to Create 5 Prints with 1 Stencil in 30 minutes

Hello everyone! Jane Bellante gratefully back with another fun tutorial for you. Today, I’m going to show you how to make 5 prints from the same stencil in about 30 minutes. This quick, creative process is perfect for making unique art pieces, cards, and journal entries! Let’s dive into the details.

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Supplies You’ll Need

• Always Reaching Stencil by Carol Wiebe
• Gel plate
• Alcohol inks (I used cranberry, monsoon, and eggplant)
• Brayer
• Computer paper or mixed media paper
• Craft acrylic paint
• Pan pastels (optional)
• Makeup sponge
• Distress spray oxides (Vintage photo and Lost shadow)

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Step-by-Step Tutorial

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Step 1: Set Up Your Gel Plate and Alcohol Inks

1. Start with a clean gel plate and three alcohol inks. For this tutorial, I’m using cranberry, monsoon, and eggplant.
2. Drip the inks onto the plate and use the brayer to spread them quickly since alcohol inks dry fast.

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Step 2: Add the Stencil and Lift Some Ink

1. Place the stencil on the inked gel plate.
2. Press down with a piece of computer paper to remove a small amount of ink. This helps create a faint negative print, as alcohol ink dries quickly.

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Step 3: Add a Thin Layer of Craft Acrylic for the Final Pull

1. Apply a thin layer of craft acrylic paint on top of the ink. This layer helps bind the inks to the paper during the pull.
2. Place the paper over the stencil, ensuring a good grip, and let it sit until fully dry before peeling it off.

 

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Step 4: Second Print with Pan Pastels

1. Place the stencil back on your gel plate, and apply your pan pastels.  I thought I would use all four colors here, but I ended up just applying two colors—orange and magenta—for a bright, blended look.
2. Use a makeup sponge to apply pan pastels to the plate; they blend beautifully!

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Step 5: Pull Multiple Prints with Pan Pastels

1. With a thin layer of craft acrylic paint, you can take multiple prints from pan pastels. These prints gradually lighten with each pull, creating a soft gradient effect.
2. Take two to three pulls, or leave some pastel residue on the plate for future layers.

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Step 6: Distress Spray Oxides for a Final Print

1. For the last print, skip the gel plate and use distress spray oxides (Vintage photo and Lost shadow) directly on the stencil.
2. Place the paper over the stencil to absorb the spray, then press it down to create a beautiful, textured effect. Pull up the stencil to reveal a unique print!

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Finished Results

And there you have it—five unique prints from the gorgeous Always Reaching stencil in about 30 minutes! Each technique adds a different layer of creativity to your work. Experiment with colors and textures to make each print uniquely yours.

You can watch the full video tutorial right here: 

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Thank you for joining me on this creative journey! Feel free to share your results with me on social media or tag me. You can find me at janebellanteart.com and follow along with @janebalanteart on all platforms. Leave a comment below and let me know what you think!

Check it Out! New Designs from Carol Weibe!

Always Reaching (LL1012)

Floral Grid (LL1013)

Leafy Loveliness (LL1014)

Carol's stencils are available now at stencilgirlproducts.com

Guest Designer Frieda Oxenham

Time to start thinking about gifts and as we all know hand-made ones are the best. So here is my suggestion:

1.     On an A3 sheet (11.7 x 16.5”) and using a permanent black permanent marker outline patterns onto the page with a selection of your favourite stencils. I used the large stencil of the April 2020 StencilClub, B stencil of the April 2023 Club, stencil 1 of the November 2022 Club, large stencil from the June 2023 Club, the large stencil from the March 2021 club, as well as stencils ATC Mix Up Kerr, Crazy Dazey, MB CM Patterns 2021, ATC Mix Up 1, Verdant Moon, Straight Stems, Curvy Stems, and Buildings. Finally I used Large Bubbles to fill in any empty spaces between patterns. 

2.     Colour in the patterns. I used permanent paint markers, mainly Posca ones.

3.     Now fold the page to make it into a booklet. It helps to use a bone folder to make the folds nice and sharp. First fold the page in half along its longest length.

Unfold and fold width wise. Keep the page folded and fold one edge to the last fold you made. Do the same for the other side. Unfold the previous two folds but keep the first width wise fold folded. Cut from that fold to the next fold. Open up the sheet that now has a slit in the middle and refold it to the first fold you made. Pull the sides away from each other and the booklet will emerge.

If this all sounds confusing check it out on YouTube where there are many videos showing the process.

4.     Colour in the background of the pages. If you want to have the same colour background for all the spreads in your booklet you can do this before the folding, but I alternated between silver and black as my background so did the colouring after the folding.

5.     I rather enjoyed the peaceful process of colouring and folding so made another booklet using a red background for all the spreads using the stencils as in step 1.

6.     I then repeated the process using a smaller A4 sheet (8.3 x 11.7”) and made a selection from my smaller 6 x 6” stencils to use with a blue background.

I enjoyed making these booklets very much and expect that I will make a lot more of them. Using different stencils and/or background colours makes them all look very different as would using different colouring media such as watercolour.

© Frieda Oxenham 2023

Frieda Oxenham: Artwork with StencilGirl® Stencils

February is a month with very low light levels and after getting through January I always dread going through another winter month. At least it’s shorter by some days! One way I use to cheer myself up is to use as much colour as possible whenever I can, and this project (or rather projects) grew out of that desire.

Here is the tutorial:

1.      Using copy paper and an 8 x 10” (or larger) gelli plate, brayer on a variety of acrylic paint colours and take prints. Keep in mind that these pages will become elements of a collage so will be torn up. Just go made with your favourite colours and enjoy yourself. Make a good selection. I ended up with about 20 pages in total.

2.      Again using the gelli plate, add one or two colours of acrylic paint to the plate, put a stencil on top and take a print on the pages produced in step 1. Also remove the stencil and take prints from the negative image left behind on the plate. I used the following stencils:  the large stencil from the August 2020 StencilClub, Batik stencil, Circles Circles, the large stencil from the March 2014 StencilClub.

3.      Using the same stencils as in step 2 but using some additional colours take more prints on your pages to add another layer.

4.      Using different colours (including white) and 2 different stencils add yet another layer to some of your pages. You might like some of your pages as they are already, so leave them be, but remember we are going to collage with all the pages so don’t get too attached to them. I used 2 different stencils for this step: the large stencil from the February 2012 StencilClub and Spirit Wind Mask.

5.      Using an 8.5 square art journal with black pages or any journal of your choice, start tearing the papers using a ruler (I used the Tim Holtz one) and start laying the pieces out on the pages. Also add vintage images, text and music to the mix. Glue it all on with a glue stick.

6.      Once you’re happy with the arrangement, cover the pages with matte medium and let dry.

7.      Add dark blue circular images to the pages using stencil Ripples Small and Inky Circles

8.      Rub some colour over the vintage papers with acrylic paint.

9.      Glue some more text or music over the top of the pages.

10.  Outline the circles added in step 7 with a permanent black inkpad.

11.  Edge the pages with a black permanent inkpad

12.  After I had finished the pages in my black art journal, I thought it would be interesting to scale it up on a larger sheet of black paper so I ordered some from Arteza. However I did not read the description properly and ending up with sheets that were pre-scored to be folded into a frame sized 7 x 8.6”

13.  As I had so much collage material left, I used 3 of these sheets to make 3 frames following the steps mentioned above. To finish them I added a flower postage stamp to each and edged the frames with a permanent black inkpad.

I really enjoyed working on the black frames so in the end I received what I didn’t know I wanted!

© Frieda Oxenham 2022. To see more of Frieda's work, please visit her BLOG.