Lesson 4: Stenciling Situations
The numbers of things that can be stenciled seem almost unlimited. You can start with the walls, floor and ceiling of a room. Then you can stencil the furniture to give it a custom look. You can stencil the accessories in the room, and the curtain and upholstery fabric. But each situation calls for some planning, and may also call for a specific type of paint. Let's look at a few of these stenciling situations and exactly what is involved in each.
Stenciling the Walls 1 - Preparation and Surprise Elements
This is probably the scariest because walls are so big ? and so easy for everyone to see should you make a mistake. But once you've mastered a few basics, you'll find that mistakes aren't all that common ? at least those that can't be remedied. And the style that a few well-placed stencils can bring to a room is amazing. Plus, that style is totally within your control. You choose the style, you choose the colors, and you decide how much or how little you want to do and where.
Your first concern is with preparing the wall. It needs to be clean. If not, the wall dirt will bleed through your paint and muddy the color. (HINT: I once stenciled an entire mural on ancient painted-over wallpaper that didn't come clean after several washings. The first panel of the mural, as you can see, is a bit muted because of the bleed-through, but I was lucky enough that it worked with the colors I was using to the point where I actually receive e-mail from people wanting to know how I got that effect. On the next wall I started with a wash of thinned transparent glaze. This sealed the wall, and the colors emerged exactly as I intended them to.)
Wash the wall and let it dry thoroughly. You may want to sand any uneven dings or plaster cracks and fill them ? unless the cracks lend themselves to the look you are trying to achieve. Finally, if the walls have been painted with gloss paint you may want to sand them lightly to give the stencil paint some "tooth" to grab onto so that it will adhere well.
You don't need to run out and repaint the room, but if you are nervous about your skills it may be reassuring to know that you have some extra paint on hand in case you need to paint out any errors. If you can't do that ? say the paint is old enough that it has faded and any touchups would be obvious, then you can still fix your mistake by painting a band of a coordinating color over the area to be stenciled (and over the old mistakes) and start fresh on the new, contrasting band of color. Be sure to use a level to mark off the area, and carefully mask it so that you have clean, crisp lines.
Single elements ? If you are just beginning you may want to start with something small ? a tiny way to leave your mark, not so obvious that it will jump right out at everyone. You might choose to stencil a few tendrils of ivy next to a window, as if it had somehow crept in from outside, or perhaps a fern in a pot sitting on the baseboard, or topiary trees standing sentinel on each side of a door. Or perhaps you would like to stencil a scroll over a picture to give the frame a little extra significance. If you are an animal lover, you may want to perch a small cat on the baseboard, or a bird on top of a door or window frame. Be logical, or be whimsical ? it's your room.
There is only one possible mistake you can really make here and that is choosing stencils that are of dramatically different styles. Some stencils are made to look quite realistic; others are primitive in effect and still others extremely stylized. To combine the three may work, depending on how you use them ? but to stencil a primitive style cat looking at a very realistic style bird might be considered to be an error in some minds. But once again ? it's your room. Do what makes you feel good.
These single elements are relatively easy to do ? in fact, the difficulty lies only in the complexity of your stencil.
Make sure that the wall area where you will be stenciling is clean and dry. Decide exactly where you want the stencil to appear, and then position your first overlay. You can use stencil adhesive to hold it in place, or low tack masking tape. Make sure you mark the registration holes if you are using a multiple overlay stencil.
Simply make sure that you have the needed supplies on hand, and begin. If you make a mistake within the stencil, simply stencil over it with white paint and then redo. If you don't like the stencil and are quick about it, you can wash it off. If you are too slow about it, but have paint to match the wall, you can paint out the whole stencil and then begin again. I always advise starting small in case you change your mind. Once you've made your personal mark in a room the next and larger projects become all that much easier to do.
