Stencil-Art

Hi Everyone,

My son is a music student at Wits and have so many guitars, but there's one guitar that is extra special as he bought it from his favourite guitarist. He also received some stickers and a signed photograph from him.  He asked me to frame the stickers so that he do not lose it, but I created this canvas with a picture of his guitar instead.

          INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Cover the stretched canvas with black Gesso – remember to also cover the sides of the canvas.
2. Collage pieces of serviettes with Matte Medium to the background.
3. Crop the photo of the guitar and print on plain copy paper with a laser printer. Carefully cut out the guitar so that the left over piece can be used as a template/stencil.
4. Play around with the placement of the guitar and stickers and use temporary adhesive spray to adhere the template to the canvas.
5. Spread fibre texture paste through the template to create dimension.  Carefully lift the template and leave overnight to dry.
6. Print another copy of the guitar on plain copy paper and tear a piece of wax paper as large as the copy paper. 
7. To print the image of the guitar on the wax paper I need to temporarily adhere the wax paper to the copy paper so that I can feed it through my laser printer.  I found that if I spray the temporary adhesive over the entire piece of wax paper, I am unable to pull the wax paper from the copy paper without tearing the image. It seems to adhere permanently where the image is printed.  Only spray adhesive on the outer edges of the copy paper and adhere the wax paper.
8. Carefully cut the image of the guitar from the wax paper and use Heritage 3D Crystal Acrylic in Sienna to adhere the image overt the fibre paste image.  Use an old store card to remove any air trapped under the wax paper and then seal the image with clear gel medium on top.
9. Spread Golden Black Metallic Acrylic over the collaged pieces of serviette to try to blend it into the background.
10. Remove the backing paper from the stickers and adhere it in place and use an old store card to really make sure that the stickers are firmly stuck down without any air trapped underneath, otherwise the stickers will start peeling after a while.
11. Apply clear gesso over the shiny stickers so that more layers can be added on top.
12. Use Viva Décor Inka Gold Metallic Rubs and Stencil-Art’s Flames stencil to add flames to the background, seeing that the band is a heavy metal band. I used a palette knife, my fingers and Ranger’s Craft Nib Tool to get into the really small spaces.  These metallic rubs really blend easily so layer the different colours to add dimension and interest to the flames.
13. Mix the Lava Red Metallic Rub with water and apply a thin wash of colour to the stickers so that it can blend into the background. 
14. I really want the flames to stand out so I repainted the background with black acrylic paint.
15. I adhered the signed self-adhesive picture of the band to the canvas and sealed it with clear gel medium on top.
16. Add more details and shading with Portfolio Water-Soluble Oil Pastels and blend with your fingers.
17. Use a fixative spray to make sure that the water-soluble oil pastels do not blend or move.
18. Finally seal the whole canvas with Polyurethane Hard Varnish in a Matt Finish to protect it from scratches and dust.  Use a foam brush to apply the varnish as to avoid brush strokes and loose bristles getting stuck to the canvas.  Place the canvas on some paint jars so that the sides of the canvas can be sealed as well and leave it to dry.

    Watch the video on Youtube: