Exploring and Experimenting with Stencil Art

A recent post on DesignAmour  prompted me to do a bit more research about stencil graffiti art. There were some great links in Melanie Royals' post that day and if this type of stenciling stirs your creativity, I urge you to follow through to some of those sites to inspire you when it comes to thinking outside of the box about stenciling.

Here are a few other good resources to check out:

• Stencil Graffiti - links to stencil graffiti artists sites, shows, information
• Watch a video of a sunset with dolphins jumping out of the water being created with spray paint and stencils.
• Over at Wikipedia you can find some great information about Stencil Graffiti, examples of artists works, history of stencil graffiti and many fascinating links.

This research that I have been delving into inspired me to go to my studio and see how I could adapt this type of work for use in clients' homes. I don't want to have to wear a mask while I work, and I am pretty sure my clients would not be too happy if I showed up to work on their walls armed with aerosol paint cans, but I can definitely see a use for an airbrush. Since I currently do not own an airbrush, and have no airbrush experience, I'm using traditional stencil brushes and sponges. My experimentation in this area has only just begun and I will try non-aerosol spray paints and a host of miscellaneous applications.

I pulled out several of my one overlay stencils, some open weaved fabric, and paper doilies and just started to play. It was a lot of fun! I sold this finish last week, to go on a long accent wall in a teenage girl's bedroom. You can follow the progress of this room over at my PainterGirl blog. For this sample board, in addition to stenciling through some fabric and paper doilies, I used stencils I had on hand from Royal Design Studio and The Stencil Library.

• Graffiti Artist Faces Jail Term
• Single Overlay Stencil Designs
• Large Stencil Designs