Summer Stencil Techniques with Suzanne: Irresistible Technique

Eye couldn’t resist a little pun for the last week of this series. Now that I got that out of me let’s get to the final #RANZAmade post with some eye-catching tag art. 

Here is a snapshot of most of the products I used for this tag. I may have used a few other colors, because this has many, many splashes and layers of colors. I love the mottled outcome though!  Fluid color is key for this tag, this will ensure a nice resist.

First things first, prepare your base layer. Adhere the book page to the tag.  I use Liquitex Fluid Matte Medium. Make sure the medium only is used to adhere the paper to the tag, it can act as a a resist too if it ends up on the top.

Let the tag dry for best results.  I realized it’s much easier to flip the tag over to cut the excess book paper.  You can see in the picture below how much clearer it is this way.

Now grab the Gel Medium and a palette knife.  Just like I showed in week three we’ll be scraping medium using the eye in the Trendy Images stencil.

You can let one dry, and then add the second eye.  Or you can just bend the stencil and just go for it.  I didn’t have the patience to wait, and it turned out pretty good! 

Now, you really have to let it dry.  Don’t try to use a heat gun either, unfortunately, I learned that the hard way many years ago. 

With the tag completely dry and set, grab your paints.  I used green and yellow colors mostly.  Now is a good point to say you’ll want some knowledge of color mixing under your belt.  Adding wet colors over one another will mix them, so if I used a red or orange over my greens, I’d get some puddles of brown. This process will be repeated a LOT here on this tag. Add color to tag, wet with spray, move the paint around with a wet paint brush. 

 
Blotting will take up a bit of paint and water.  It can help if you didn’t like how the colors were mixing, too.  

I’ll soon start to sound like a broken record, but just keep adding paint, and removing.  Here I took a baby wipe to remove paint from the gel.  You can see how nice of a resist it ends up to be!  

Using a darker shade of green, I used a wet paintbrush to darken the eyes a little for some contrast.  

More contrast was what I was hoping for using brown, but it wasn’t exactly the result I wanted. I blotted it away, then sprayed a dark teal ink. Again, used a baby wipe to reveal the resist a bit more.  

We’re finally approaching the finish line!  One last step for this tag.  High flow carbon black for the ultimate contrast.  I used a wet small detailed paint brush to the tag.  It made the eyes pop so well!  

Notice I didn’t completely cover the background in green?  It gives a cool effect and makes your eyes move around the tag. 

Such an eye-catching technique!  When I first tested this out I didn’t use any black around the eyes.

It’s a much more subtle set of peepers.  Which do you prefer? I tend to go for higher contrast, personally.  Have you tried resists this way before?  There are many ways to get similar effects.  If you’re new and want to learn more techniques check out Julie’s online class Getting Started with Resists. 

Thanks for sharing this six weeks of techniques celebrating the latest release of The Crafter’s Workshop Balzer Designs stencils.

Avery Tags, Liquitex Fluid Matte Medium, Golden Heavy Gel (Gloss), Palette Knife, Golden High Flow Acrylics: Phthalo Green (Blue Shade), Carbon Black, Fluorescent Green, Golden Fluid Acrylics: Hansa Yellow Light, Van Dyke Brown Hue, Dylusions Ink Spray Vibrant Turquoise, Deco Art Mister Primary Yellow, Catalyst Paintbrush Long Handle 2/0.

The Crafter’s Workshop Trendy Images from Scrapbook.com – New stencils are all finally available for purchase!