Sunday 1 February 2009

Playing with arty stencils.

Took a few minutes this morning while waiting for my breakfast to settle to have a go with the arty free stencils for artrage posted yesterday. This example here is one of thousands of ways you can use them. In this one I squeezed some (lots actually - I have been taking tips form blurt) white and pale yellow all over and then used the palette knife to spread it but not smooth it over too much. After that I took one of the stencils sized it up to cover my paper and I chose to rotate it too because I fancied the flower at the top right and the stripes at the bottom. I added a layer on artrage so it would be like my bottom layer is dry paint and not wet squishy stuff that would blend with anything new I added -- on this picture I was trying to capture the texture as much as the patterns of the stencils. On the stencil and new layer I squeezed purple paint and spread it with the palette knife. Then I added a new layer and a different stencil - without removing the first. On these heaped stencils and new layer I painted on black with a roller. Then I hid the second stencil so I could return to it later in active stencils if I thought I needed to. (I didn't but I didn't know that then!) Adding another layer I inverted the first stencil I used and using a paint brush with white - I used it again to power up the highlights. Then I stopped and took a look -- I swapped the black and purple layers and changed their blends - I wasn't working scientifically I just tweaked them until I felt happy. This is what I had when I finished in Artrage it's OK but I wanted to add a bit more bumpiness so I took it into filter forge and added in bit of simple bump and then I decided I liked it and left it as the first picture in this blog entry. Now I wasn't making this picture for any purpose so now I need to decide what I can use it in. I may use submit it as a card to redbubble, I may add it as a picture on a wall in some 3d Art. I may use it as a posing backdrop for one of my characters - who know I'll let it rest and come back to it in a couple of days and see how react to it then.