I'm In Love.......With Stencils

As I've mentioned before, I returned from that Lynne Perrella workshop obsessed with stencils and I even noted on this blog:  buy more stencils.  Hah!  Did I ever!  I now just might have every Crafter's Workshop stencil out there.  Well, if not all, then surely most.  Thank you Lynne for opening my eyes to all the ways that stencils can enhance and freshen up the look of a collage.

The other day, after some whining and complaining, I FINALLY received another Artistic Evolution journal to work on.....Tracy's.  Remember, this is the journal with pages that vary in size so that you can see the edges of some pages behind others.  Easier to show than explain.  Here is a picture of the edges done so far in Tracy's book:

Mine is the last one, the pinkish roses.  Pretty cool, huh?  After my page, there is a repetition of these sizes, and then another.  Math gives me a headache, but Val, who designed the books (and assembled them for us) worked it out just perfectly for the number of artists in this group.

I didn't pick up on the theme of the pages that came before mine, but took a cue from some of the colors.  OK, honestly, I have no idea how my pages evolved from those that preceded them.  I just followed my muse.  And came up with these, chock full of layers, collage elements, and yes.....lots and lots of stenciling.

I started with texture by gluing some handmade papers randomly on my base.  Over this, squares of asian newspapers.  Then I applied some metallic paint by scraping it over everything with an old credit card.  When all this was dry, I covered the page with one of my new stencils and dabbed black acrylic paint over the whole thing.  That's how the metallic flowers with the black background came to be.  You really have to look at it closely to see the layers that lie beneath, but they are there.  On top of all this, I laid some sequin waste (squares instead of round holes) and dabbed some gold paint through it.

As for the images......again, I have to credit Lynne for sharing so many ways for me to take an available image and make it my own.  I found the black and white pictures on the internet, printed them out, resized them, and then made toner copies (so there's no ink to smear later on).  These are colored with Portfolio water soluble oil pastels, and enhanced with stamping, even more stenciling, and in the case of the woman, a whole lot of bling (in the form of micro beads and stickles).  I also did some doodling with glaze pens.