Fun with Stencils

I'm so happy to share my small art quilts created with Terri's new stencils! This is day 3 of Terri Stegmiller's blog hop celebrating her awesome new line of stencils! I hope you'll follow along each day and see lots of great art projects using her stencils -- 8 days of art and 14 stencils!

 

Voyage, 10 x 7.75 inches

 

Passage, 9.75 x 8 inches

I was thrilled when my stencils arrived. Did Terri pick these just for me? If so, she was spot on! I got the Spinners and Waves patterns.

I knew I wanted to create two small art quilts to show off the diversity and graceful designs of the stencils. I also knew I wanted to use a neutral color palette. So I pulled out a stack of fabrics.

This is way more than I need for two small fabric collages, but it's inspiring!

I thought it would be interesting to try the stencils on felt. So, here I sliced a piece of black felt and went to work.

Here's a detail of the finished stencil on felt with added embroidery. It's tough to photograph felt... it absorbs so much light. Even tougher to get a good image of black felt!

I added just a tiny bit of black outline to some sections of this stencil and a few dots which tie in to the dots on the "waves" stencil.

I used acrylic paint right out of the bottle. I love the additional layer of texture and body that paint can add and it has great consistency to use with stencils. Nice clean lines! I also use a spouncer sponge/brush to dab the paint through the stencils.

I kept painting and playing and experimenting with various colors and fabrics until I had a stack of options to use in building my collages.

After the background of the collages was mostly composed and stitched, I used a white gel pen and outlined the spinner stencil to add layers of detail.  This is a great way to use stencils -- and somewhat unexpected.

Here's the finished detail. I especially loved twisting and turning and overlapping the stencils.

Stencils play so well with all kinds of other elements... commercial fabrics, embroidery, original surface designs and machine stitching.

Now, you are really itching to use some stencil in your work, right? Here's your chance to win your own set of the two stencils that I used here.  To be eligible to win you must provide contact information if you don't have your email associated with your comment ID. Leave comments over the next week and I'll announce the winner of January 29.

And also be sure to visit all the other artists participating in the Stencil Blog Hop.  You can enter for more chances to win some of Terri's great stencils.

Blog Hop Schedule:
Sunday, Jan. 20 (Kickoff) - Terri Stegmiller
Monday, Jan. 21 - Leslie McNeil
Tuesday, Jan. 22 - Deborah Boschert (That's me! You're here!)
Wednesday, Jan. 23 - Margaret Applin
Thursday, Jan. 24 - Brenda Gael Smith
Friday, Jan. 25 - Vicki Welsh
Saturday, Jan. 26 - LuAnn Kessi
Sunday, Jan. 27 - Sue Bleiweiss

Find Terri's stencils online at Stencil Girl Products.