There are so many ways to create handmade stencils. Another one of my favorite materials to use it Tyvek. I recycle mailing envelopes made of Tyvek and cut out fun shapes. The material is durable and also can be used for collage elements after they’ve been painted, or burned with a heat gun to create quilt embellishments. In this exercise we use flower stencils cut from Tyvek to print some fun acrylic skins on Plexi. See the acrylic skins exercises in the beginning of this section for more information.
OPEN acrylic paint
11" × 14" (28cm × 36cm) sheet of Plexiglas
soft rubber brayer
Tyvek handcut flower stencils
Collage Pauge acrylic skins
Roll out two colors of acrylic paint onto the Plexiglas plate using a soft rubber brayer. Place hand-cut Tyvek stencils over the wet paint.
Place a dry Collage Pauge acrylic skin face down onto the Plexiglas plate.
Here is the initial print of pulling the skin from the plate. This acrylic skin was made from a mixture of Collage Pauge matte and fluid paint mixed with glitter.
Remove the paper stencils from the Plexiglas sheet and take a print. Place the painted flower onto another acrylic skin face down and roll over the back with a clean, soft rubber brayer to transfer the paint to the surface.
Take another paper flower stencil and place it on the acrylic skin surface and repeat step 4.
Place a third flower stencil over the acrylic skin and roll over the back with the painted brayer. This will result in the reverse print of the stencil, also called a negative.
Remove the third flower stencil to reveal the flower prints. Set aside to dry.
Now that all the flower stencils are removed from the Plexiglas plate, place a piece of white drawing paper onto the wet paint and rub the back of the paper with your hands. Pull up the paper from one corner to check if the paint transferred.
Here is the final flower plate print revealed.