Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Zensdays: Stenciling and Tangling

This week's diva challenge is UMT which stands for Use My Tangle ...Laura Harms randomly chooses someone's tangle and we incorporate it into our tile. This week's tangle is "FANZ" by Susan Goetter and click HERE to find out more about the diva's challenge and find the links for Susan's fan design. Wayne used it on a portion of the leaves on our creation.

This week I did a stenciling tutorial and Wayne did the tangle creation afterwards. We actually did this in black and white last week, but when I saw the challenge for this week I thought it would be fun to do the design in color by stenciling the flower. See below to see how it was done. Just need to let you know that the stencil was discontinued several years ago. It is an arts and crafts tile design called Chrysanthemum and Dreamweaver had it as a brass stencil design in 2003. I have a handful of them left and if you are interested in having one I am having a random drawing from those commenters on my blog who indicate they want the stencil. All you have to do is at the end of your comment write..."I'm IN"! And...I will ship overseas.


First I traced the design with an 01 Micron pen by Sakura. One thing you need to be aware of ...is this stencil is made out of brass and as such can create havoc with your pens if you are heavy handed. Be sure to hold the pen perpendicular to your paper surface as shown here and don't angle it, otherwise you can slice the nib of the pen with the pressure against the metal stencil edge. I tend to be pretty hard on pens and using a light touch doesn't come easy to me. I have had to practice and pay attention to not pressing too hard when tracing the design of these intricate stencils. If you are aware of this it will be much easier to make it through the tracing process without ruining a pen. In fact using an 005 pen is even better because some of the openings of the stencil are really tiny and minute...so as you get better using this finer tipped pen makes it easier to achieve the detail you want.


I am using pigment ink...dye ink works better for this because it is less likely to clog your micron pens but it was all I had at the time. The paper towel is for off-loading the excess ink into, don't be afraid to push hard. This moves the ink up into your bristles and keeps the brush "dry" ...hence the term dry-brush technique. If you practice this a bit on scrap paper first you can get an idea how wet your ink pad is and how much wetness you need to work out of your brush. First I laid a base of yellow and then worked with green shading it into the yellow, and to dull the colors I next used red so the colors ended up a bit dull and more authentic to the Arts and Crafts time period.






Stenciling fuchsia with a very light touch will give you a base to make a purple with a light loading of blue for the last coat of color.












Now remove the stencil for this next step. The process of blacking in the background started by using an 03 Micron pen. This pen has a slightly thicker nib and then in the next step use a marker type of nib. I know some people even use "Sharpie" pens to do lots of blacking so they can preserve their finer pens, but as you can see in the picture below I used a Micron "Graphic 1".




I actually like the image just stenciled without any of the tangle work. I did a couple of these and tested my skills with the "FANZ" challenge tangle, but alas I was running out of time and I wanted to get this up for you to see, so Wayne saved me on this one and did the tangle work. He's a CZT and rarely tells anyone, but he is a fabulous teacher and is very encouraging. He usually cheers me on, but on this occasion he buckled to my need for getting the job done and did a great job. But I have to say the real masterpiece is the one he did on his Flickr site, you can interpret it a couple of ways, but I saw a sunflower in his finished piece. So take a minute to see the work he did for the challenge this week and leave a comment if you have time. Don't forget to write "I'm IN!" if you want to join the random drawing for this stencil. I will announce the winners by Sunday evening.

Three Random Winners
Last Zensday I gave commenters the opportunity to win a discontinued metal stencil of an Arts and Crafts tile stencil design ...all you had to do was comment and say, "I'm IN" at the end. Here are the three winners:
1 Art Lady Kate, Tangles and More
Jean Chaney
and
Christine Springer
Please email your snail mail to:
lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com
(I won't have time to ship it until the end of this week.)

22 comments:

LezliB said...

Lynell, I am cheating and taking a look at what others are doing before I am finished with mine. This is gorgeous! Thank you so much for going through the process of dry brushing as I have several Dreamweaver Stencils from when I was doing a lot of scrapbooking and rubber stamping and card making. I never could get the process quite right, so thank you very much. You and Wayne make a very good couple in your joint ventures, I must say....and yes, I'm IN!

Maggibee said...

I love your explanations, Lynell, they always make me want to get up and have a go. I'm going to try this technique later today if my grandson has a quiet moment or two. Well, maybe tomorrow. In fact, I've been using a couple of your stencils and you can see the results on my blog this week. (I've not posted it yet because I haven't finished my Fans for the Diva but it will all go on today.) I agree about how good it looks before the patterns too, although, in the end, I still feel the patterned version is just gorgeous. I looked at Wayne's work on Flickr and would have commented in worshipful superlatives if only I could work out how to post comments. Please pass on my admiring comments. Oh, and, of course, "I'm IN!"

Anne's tangle blog said...

Very beautiful and great to see the process!!

jeanchaneyaz said...

This is gorgeous and Wayne tangled it perfectly, as usual. I appreciate your taking the time to give a tutorial. It's always nice to see how people achieve their beautifully colored pieces. "I'm IN"

Sandi Lou said...

What a great idea to use your ink pad and stencil brush for the background color. I love it when I learn a tip to extend the usability of my supplies. Your tutorial is inspiring. And "I'm IN" !!

Jan Castle said...

You are so right...it is beautiful even without the tangle! Thank you for showing how you colored and blended to achieve the beautiful card. Wayne's tangle work is simply amazing and precise- love the finished work of art! Thank you too for the tip on how to hold the pens....I am sure I would have ruined mine without this tip - LOL! Would love to give this a try so.....I'm In! Thanks so much Lynell for the chance.
Paper Hugs,
Jan

Christina said...

Oh My!!!! I LOVE LOVE LOVE your creativity with this tile! Its absolutely Stunning!
Thank you for sharing.

Ilse said...

You did such a great job: making a beautiful piece of art and showing us how you created it. I like :-)

Anonymous said...

This is just beautiful and I love the black background. I have stenciled before, but not with inks, so thanks for the info. It will make things faster and easier. I did have one of those duh, moments thinking now why hadn't I tried this before though. I Love this stencil, such a lovely arts and crafts one. "I'm IN!"

ionabunny said...

I love the abstract design of this stencil. Can't believe you did all that blacking in. Love the colours and the tangles. It really pops against the black. Thanks for the dry brushing tips. Hugz. "I'm IN!"

Marta said...

How awesome!!! Thanks for sharing the process!

Vicki Sopcak said...

Dreamweaver you never disappoint. Great coloring. I'm IN!!!

Jade said...

Love your tutorial. So inspirational. I'm IN! :)

Suzanne Fluhr said...

What a great collaborative process. I really enjoyed having the chance to see how you work with stencils; and, Wayne did a great job with his tangling and incorporating FANZ. I also like the piece without the tangles---but then it wouldn't do for the Diva. Thank you for sharing.

Viki Banaszak said...

This looks so pretty! I love the way it looks all tangled up.

Unknown said...

Wow! Excellent teamwork on this one. The color is fantastic, I always have trouble working with color especially getting the blend right from one color to the next. Thanks for posting the steps of the process maybe someday I'll work up the courage to try that myself. "I'm IN!"

Louise said...

Beautiful coloring and tangles, I have not ever blackened the whole background, but this is stunning. I agree, a sunflower!

HeidiSue said...

the shape of the stencil is so architectural, and with the tangles added, it reminds me of a Mayan or Aztec temple. The colors are just lovely too.

Gloria j Zucaro said...

Wow! Just beautiful work. Thank you for the steps of using a stencil with the colors and then the final glory of tangling the whole design. I love your bridal shower card, too with the pearls. Thank you for leaving a comment on my blog.

Antonine said...

Thank you so much for the tutorial on how you accomplished this. It's incredibly beautiful!

CraftyJo said...

It's wonderful to see all the photos, the steps taken to produce this fabulous piece of art.... I'm in :)

dianeclancy said...

This is totally amazing to read all this step by step!! It is lovely at each step!! I had no idea that you blacked in the whole background. So very lovely!! And Wayne's tangling finishes it off nicely!! WOW!!

~ Diane Clancy
http://www.dianeclancy.com/blog/2015/04/my-diva-umt-fanz-challenge-entry
~ Diane Clancy

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