Stenciling 101

Lesson 2: Practice Run - Getting the Basics Down

Themes and Variations

A single overlay stencil doesn't have to be monotonous, like the leaf at left, even if you did do it in one basic color. Using the highlight and shading techniques I mentioned will give it some life and interest, but you can add even more.

You can add some touches that will add depth to the design and make it appear much more sophisticated. And these touches will be great practice for when we get to the more complicated multiple overlay stencil projects.

TOUCH ONE: Take a look at your design and see where a bit of shading or highlighting might look good. Replace the stencil over your original practice run, and choose a different color of paint either deeper or much lighter than your original choice. Now prepare your brush and paint ? once again offloading enough paint that the brush is almost dry, and pounce the new color lightly where you want to highlight or shadow the design. Go very lightly at first ? if you want more you can replace your stencil and go over areas you want to increase the effect in later. The registration marks will help you.

HINT: If you want to create the look of highlights and shadows, first decide where the imaginary source of light is coming from. Lighter colors should be pounced on the side that the light would strike, darker colors go away from the light, in any areas that might logically be expected to be in the shadows.

Take a look at your design now. Amazing how a little addition of color can make it look so much more sophisticated, isn't it?

HINT ? I have found that while shadowing with a deeper shade of the main color works well, highlighting often needs to be quite drastic. As in straight white unless your base color is a deep, dramatic black. Shadows in nature tend to be purple, but gray or brown can also work. This is where the stencil crèmes excel as you will be able to blend them (use your finger if you want ? it's allowed.) so that they fade right out into the base color while remaining deep where you most need shading.

TOUCH TWO: Now something actually easier but a bit more advanced ? adding a second or third color to stencil elements.

Take a moment and picture a maple leaf in autumn. It is not a solid color, but rather a blend of color. It may be mostly golden, but with a tinge of red at the edges and maybe in the center. If you have a leaf stencil handy, give it a try. First use a single base color, and then lightly pounce in a bit of red or gold. See the effect? More interesting, isn't it? Or think of the petals of many tulips that graduate from one color into another. Why not create that effect in paint.

TOUCH THREE: You can even use unrealistic colors to surprisingly good effect. Let's assume that your room is green with rose in color. Take a stencil of a rose and imagine using that rose color for the petals. The leaves are obviously green - but add a touch of the petal color to the center of the leaves. Or even plain green leaves in a rose colored wall can look surprisingly good with that wall color blended in. Not realistic ? but sophisticated, and it is a custom touch that makes that rose appear completely customized for your décor.

TOUCH FOUR: Another thing you can do to add interest to a non-representational design such as this intricate border is to use broken color. You can choose to simply let different colors fade into an out of each other - in which case there is no need for masking. Just dapple color over several areas randomly, then go back and fill in other areas with a second and then a third color, trying not to overlap colors too much or you will get a somewhat muddy effect. Or you can choose to paint different repeating elements in a particular color to create a color pattern, as this stencil does. In that case, you need to know about painting close elements with different colors.

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