Gallery Idol Round 3 - Stencils

Hey everyone!  I was pretty excited about the challenge for this round of Gallery Idol, if you've followed me for a while, you know that I am a huge stencil fan.

I decided to use Ronda Palazzari's Citygrid stencil for The Crafter's Workshop to create my background.  This is a very simple, but time consuming process.  I laid the stencil over a panel of watercolor paper and then lightly traced around each opening with pencil.  Then I removed the stencil and watercolored each of the spaces.  I actually only used three colors:  Evergreen Bough and Iced Spruce distress ink, and Black ink from CTMH.  Black is tricky as the colors tend to separate in water, so that ended up looking more brown than black, but I actually love the shade that came out.  I ended up with a few dusty blue type spaces and that's when I knew I needed to change/clean out my water.

Here's what the watercolored stencil panel looked like when I was done, you can see that I didn't watercolor evenly, I wanted there to be a graduation in color in each of the spaces.




I thought long and hard about the sentiment, originally leaning towards using a travel theme, but in the end decided that my On the Corner set was too perfect a pairing to pass up.  Sometimes stamped lines seem very stark/hard in comparison, and I wanted to echo the watercoloring/painting in the background, so I ended up compromising.  I stamped the street sign/sentiments in a very light ink, and then traced over the lines with a VERY fine brush and some more of that 'black' ink.




I managed to not take a picture when I was doing it, but here's what it looks like.



To anchor the card, I cut another strip of the watercolor paper and clear embossed the sentiment.  Then I painted that 'black' ink over top until I got the darkness that I wanted.  Finally, the embossing was removed by placing a piece of copy paper over top and ironing it.



Lots of dimension on this one. I popped up the stenciled panel as well as the street sign and sentiment strip.  I love this one and I hope you do too!  And if you do, please head over to the Gallery and vote for me (entry #5), I'd love to get to the next round!

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock:  Canson - Watercolor Paper; Avery Elle - Truffle
Stamps:  Neat & Tangled - On the Corner and On the Corner Additions
Ink:  Ranger - Evergreen Bough and Iced Spruce Distress Ink; CTMH - Black and Parchment ink; Versamark
Other:  The Crafter's Workshop - Mini Citygrid Stencil; CTMH - Clear Embossing Powder and Dimensional Foam Tape; American Crafts - This and That Foam Adhesive