Stencil Art

Once upon a time, a long long time ago, there was a lady who started an art project. But halfway through, she became uninspired and lacked direction. In addition, her life became a whirlwind of unending busy-ness, so the project was left hanging. Unfinished. For two years.

But then, one day, as her free time increased and ideas came, she decided to finish the said painting.

 Below, you will find the "befores" of the painting.  As the woman documented the half-finished project, the four-leggers came. All of them. And they had to be documented too.

 

In the years before, she painted the original canvases in a matte black acrylic, which was topped with a swirly stencil in a metallic black finish. Which then hung there. Unfinished. For two years.

As her free time grew, she remembered a Beatles' lyric that her husband was very fond of. She felt it was the perfect addition to any piece of bedroom art.

 "What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you, but I know it's mine."

Knowing that free-handing the lyric would be a disaster, she went about making a computer generated stencil that she would print and cut out her self. The woman started in Microsoft Word, with WordArt and then pasted the finished design in Microsoft Publisher to achieve the desired stencil dimensions.

 

If there was an easier way, the woman was not aware of it, so she proceeded with what she knew...

 After each detail was to her liking, she printed out the stencil and pieced it all together. She also repaired any damages done by one of the above four-leggers (ahem, Macy).

The woman gathered her x-acto knife and cutting mat and cut cut cut away. In the span of several HOURS, over TWO DAYS, she finally had each word cut. With a little help from Rhubarb, of course.

With all of the letters removed and stencils in place, the woman used a stiff stipple brush to fill in the stencil with white paint.

 Nothing is ever perfect the first time around, so she had to fill in the missing white pieces from the stencil and break out her black paint to clean up the edging around the letters.

And voila! The painting was finally complete. It could now hang proudly on the wall. Finished. Meanwhile, the woman laid on the couch, exasperated from the the hunching and bending required to finish the project, but satisfied to know she had created it and it was DONE.

 The new painting(s) fit in well with her collection of art that she had produced from the stockpile of square canvases in her possession. She created the painting below with stencils as well. She knew the key to decent art, for her skill set, was a stencil. Stencils, stencils, stencils.

 I wonder what all of her knew found free time will bring next?

I leave you with a bit of malarkey...