Stencil Class: Portraits!

Sadly, this is the last week of my stencil class. (But I am taking another one next month!)

We have moved to making portrait stencils. I am trying very hard to make all of my own stencils and not use any pre-made ones but sometimes I look at other students' work in the class and think their work is better because their stencils are so much cooler. Oh well, guess I just have to keep working away at it!

My first portrait was of Chihuly since I was just at the the Musueum of Glass the other day, looking at some of his work and then we saw him receive the Golden Scarf at the Sounders game yesterday. His eye patch and hair seemed like a great vehicle for spray paint! I like this one probably the best of all the stencils I have made.


For my second portrait, I decided to do a self-portrait. For both of the portraits, I used a stencil burner versus a good old Exact-o knife. Exact-o blades dull quickly and are not as good at complicated edges, but the stencil burner stinks when it is cutting into the plastic stencil and I haven't quite gotten the hang of it yet and have gotten my edges a little raggedy.

The one below I screwed up and reversed the stencil. I think I look weird backwards.


This next one I have been painting over and over again on the paper all week because I haven't been very happy with it. A lot of texture is starting to build up on it. I might just let it go at this point.


Below are some stencils I started a few days ago. The only thing I didn't cut out myself is the double spiral image.




The point of this class was about making a visual journal, and I am not really a journal or scrap-booking type, but I think I can keep working with these to make them more interesting.


I want to come up with a really cool image to spray paint on our front sidewalk. Trevor looked a little alarmed when I mentioned this and casually said, "but make sure it is something good first".