Lesson 2: Adding your Individual Stamp - Stencil Equipment
Special Effects Tools Part Two
The tools I listed in the previous section are fairly common as stenciling supplies. There are others that are more commonly thought of as faux finishing tools - but there is no reason why we can't apply some of those techniques to our stenciled work as well.
- Crumpled rags - If you are trying to create the illusion of fabric, applying paint with a crumpled rag will create a texture that resembles crushed velvet or suede. You have two methods for ragging. One is to paint the area (using a regular brush - no dry-brushing with this technique!) and then dabbing the scrunched up rag into the paint to remove some of it.
The alternative is to roll the rag into a sort of rough sausage shape and dip it into the paint. Blot it on newspaper until it no longer leaves big blots, and then start rolling the rag onto the surface you want to cover with paint. Use the palms of your hand, and vary the direction in which you are rolling frequently.
Either method creates an interesting textured finish, great for backgrounds, anything that you want to look like real fabric, or anything that you simply want to have something other than a flat finish on.
- Feathers Feathers are mostly used in faux marbling - you dip them in paint and then drag them along the surface in the direction that a marble vein would run. The feathers create that blurred look that marble veins usually have effortlessly. I can also see using them to create fur patterns on animals - to make a striped cat instead of a solid one - since fur, too, has indistinct edges.
- Graining Tool Graining tools are usually used to create the look of wood grain, or for combed finishes. Paint is applied to the surface, and the grainer is then dragged down that painted surface to remove some paint in a linear pattern. A straight pull downward created a striped effect, but if you allow the lines to wobble, and sometimes to swerve an inch or so, you start to get an effect closely resembling wood grain. Or try painting a pale pastel over a slightly deeper shade of the same color and comb it to create a watered silk or moiré effect.
This will not work if you have used regular acrylic paints, unless you have added an extender to slow down the drying time. It also works very well if you use either straight glaze or glaze mixed with paint.
Remember that the combing will reveal whatever the color of the surface below the fresh paint was. So generally combing will involve two coats of paint. For wood, you might use a medium brown as your base, and a golden brown for the top coat. If you are stenciling what should be an old, weathered fence, you may want to use gray for the bottom coat and white for the glaze coat.
- Fingers What can I say? Fingers are great tools. I use mine all the time. Sometimes I use a fingertip, slightly moistened, to clean away small mistakes. Most often, I use them to quickly blend two colors together where shadow meets highlight. If I am trying to create a fine line of shadow around a small object, I may use a permanent felt tip pen for the line, immediately blurring the line with my fingers so that it fades from dark to lighter.
