I took a trip to Muji the other day to buy some plain items that I could stencil. I found these simple pillow cases that I thought would be perfect to stencil a design onto from the new book. I am not sure why I am on such a turquoise kick, but I used it again to paint with! For this project, all you need is fabric paint, a stencil brush, a stencil and a pillowcase. I stenciled a design on each side just to test both out and voila! Check it out.
If you are in the Bay Area, tune into View from the Bay at 3pm today on Channel 7 ABC News. I was honored to tape a segment with energetic host Lisa Quinn in her stunning home. I showed Lisa how to make t-shirts and more using the stencils from our book. Not in the Bay area? Well, they also stream the show live on their website here. Hope you like it!
So rather than watch tv last nite, I went to my studio for a few hours to make some prints. Earlier in the day I purchased some archival sheets of paper that are about 18″x24″, about $1.90 each. If you want to make some art for your walls rather than stencil your walls, this is a fun project. To do prints like this, you will need stencils, ink sprays, a stencil brush, cardboard, and scrap paper.
So I laid out a canvas tarp to catch any overspray and piece of cardboard to allow the paper to lay flat. I knew I would mostly be using my Stencil1 Sprays to make the print. These are fabric inks that are acid-free and archival. They are also non-aerosol! I had two very different concepts, one being a colorful explosion of stencils and the other more of an anti-war poster. What can I say, I’m a Gemini.
Archival print by Ed Roth of Stencil1
Archival print by Ed Roth of Stencil1
It’s a quick and easy process. I basically placed my stencils where I wanted them, masked out the areas outside the stencil so my overspray would paint my paper, I used scrap paper, and then sprayed lightly into the stencil area. When done with one stencil area, I carefully lifted the stencil up, still keeping it level with the surface so no excess paint on the stencil surface would drip onto my print. To get the excess paint off the stencil you can place a piece of paper on top of the stencil to soak up that excess paint, and in doing so you are also making a reverse print on that paper! That’s a tip from my gal pal Elaine.
As for the lettering in the banner in the war print, I did use a stencil brush and our Old English Stencil letters. What’s nice about doing lettering with the stencils is the mylar we use is semi transparent so you can see exactly where you want to align your type.
I proceeded to place stencils where I thought they would look nice, choose different colors, and continued this way. Creating your own composition is the fun part! Symmetrical or not, color choices, placement, it all comes from you.
So If you decide to make some poster prints using our stencils, please send us images and we will post to the blog! Thanks!
Stencil1 has come full circle, we are proud to announce our first book with Chronicle Books!
Stencil101: Make Your Mark with 25 Reusable Stencils and Step-by-Step Instructions comes out in October and will include, you guessed it, 25 stencils and 9 how-to projects including how to stencil a cake and how to stencil windows. PRE-ORDER NOW CHRONICLE BOOKS>