Sketch to Stencil

For some unknowable reason, a couple weeks ago I pulled out an old sketchbook, tore out some dozen old pages of halfhearted sketches and notes to self and just painted for the hell of it. I have not kept any sort of sketchbook or art journal for ages, but I guess that's a thing I do now.

My first spring back into doing more art to art was this watercolor.

Portraiture, especially of women, has always been my pretty much favorite. I liked the composition of this a lot and wanted to do something more with it. I considered carving her into a stamp, but I wanted to keep the image fairly flat, she's too sleek for a lot of texture to slip in but not quite simple enough to pull off without some sort of shading. So I decided as a true return to form, I would make a stencil. 

I'm lazy, so the stencil process begins with three photocopies roughly mounted to some mixed media paper. 

Stencil carving in multiple parts is fiddly, but pretty easy. On one copy I cut out everything I wanted red (lips and background) copy two cut out all the grey and three the black. When I got to the black I wanted to punch myself for not thinking through how much of a pain in the ass the slits in the middle of the dress were going to be. I had to alter the design a bit due to the physics of paper having to be attached to stay together.                     

Layer one, just the reds. 

Plus layer two.

Plus layer three. At first I was going with watercolor, but the first water color black didn't look great so I did an ink pad on the other. I liked the ink pad a lot better for the black.

I did a set with ink pads for the pink and black (fun fact, I don't own a red ink pad...) The grey on the far left is watercolor, the other two are done with a kid's airbrush. I like both ways.                 

                 

This stencil is destined to be the mascot for a zine series I am working on (I have the writing done for a handful of them, just need to illustrate) and will likely find her way into a lot of mail boxes on postcards.