Workin' the Stencils

Last week in this post, Julie Fei-Fan Balzer inspired me to make a page with lots of stencil layers. I usually play it safe with stencils and use one or two on a page but I wanted to stretch myself.  So, I grabbed my stencils and headed to my desk. As you can see, I didn't bother to tidy it or crop out the mess in Photoshop. This is what it looks like...all the time.

I started with a spread in my Dylusions Journal and I covered it in Tim Holtz Tissue Tape.



The green paint underneath is a leftover experiment that didn't work out. So, I didn't mind covering it up. Then I added some blue craft paint...



...and covered the whole page.



I let it sit for a few minutes. I wanted it to dry a little but I had no intention of hiding all that Tissue Tape so I grabbed a baby wipe...



...and wiped until I had brought back a lot of the Tissue Tape.

Then I added some orange craft paint through one of my all time favorite stencils - Blazonry by Balzer Designs.



The paint was thick in places so I added some texture.



Then I added a few more stencils. I got caught up in the process and forgot to take pictures of each layer. I don't remember what order I added the stencils but I used Jenni Bowlin for Ranger Paint Dabber in Lemon Drop with the Chevron Arrow stencil, gesso with the Chunky Chevron stencil and Dylusions Black Marble ink spray with my alpha stencil.



Finally, I added some dots with the Dylusions Dotted Flower 5x8 stencil and Claudine Hellmuth Studio Paint in Classic Teal.



And here's a look at the final page.



How about a closeup?



Honestly, I cannot believe I made this page. I only used paint, stencils and Tissue Tape but I didn't feel limited. I love the variety of images and the overall feel of this page. In the end, I layered up 5 different stencils on this page. If you add the paint layer and Tissue Tape that's a total of 7 layers.

So, now I'm layering up stencils like crazy. I'm trying to figure out what I like and how much is enough and how much is too much. It's a lot of fun.

I hope you have a weekend full of inspiration and creative time.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cathie