BlueDayDesigns

Sample Portrait Designs

2011-10-13T13:58:00.000-07:00

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six


Seven


Eight


Nine

Note: The portraits can be printed in any color. They can be printed on a small canvas (around 10 inches), medium canvas (around 20 inches) or large canvas (around 30 inches).

Father's Day portraits

2011-06-01T14:08:00.000-07:00

Just finished!

I think my favorite is this first one. The girl's mother said they call this photo the 'too cool for school' photo. At last I've been able to do a portrait that features girl's clothing - I've been wanting to do one for ages.

This is the same girl - the mum chose complementary colors for the two portraits, and I think they'll look good together on the wall. I really like this reddish background color.

The next two are of the same boy and are mini portraits. I love the fire-engine and the retro colors that the mum chose. It's a pity I couldn't get more detail in the face, but I think the details of the fire-engine and the hat make up for it.

Kissing Cousins

2011-04-03T15:53:00.000-07:00

My Irish cousins were visiting for a few months over Christmas and we thought we'd do an artwork together. This was the photo we started with (...and I should explain at this point that they are not both my cousins, it's my cousin and his wife, Mairead).

I've whited out the background but the original photo was even more beautiful - they are kissing in front of a field of snow just outside their home.

This is the stencil design we came up with. I initially thought we wouldn't be able to include the sequins on Mairead's hat but with a bit of persistance I was able to connect all the white sections of her hat together. (In stencils you need to have all the white connected in some way to another piece of white - so the whole thing hangs together when you cut it out).

Then we cut the stencil out. I think it was the most intricate stencil I've ever cut - because of all the fine detail in Mairead's hat. I think my favorite part is their scarfs - and my cousin's curly hair.

We put the stencil down onto a flat tiled canvas and used my latest technique for getting the stencil to stick down firmly - stomping on it.

Then Mairead got down and dirty with a can of pink spray-paint.

And, here's her holding the final product! Sweet :)

Portrait Show

2011-02-04T15:13:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking of entering a portrait in an Australian portrait competition. Don't know if I have a chance of even getting in, but it's worth a shot!

I have to send a photo first, and then if I get in I send the actual artwork. Which of these portraits do you prefer? (These photos are very rough...once I decide which artwork to enter I'll take better photos or scan the artwork).

Quote of the day

2011-01-24T13:19:00.000-08:00

Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.

- Claude Monet -

Australian Flood Appeal

2011-01-14T12:44:00.000-08:00

A group of Australian Etsy sellers have set up a store chock full of items donated to raise funds for the people affected by the Queensland floods.

100% of the proceeds (minus Etsy and Paypal fees) will be donated to the Queensland Premier's Disaster Relief Appeal.

There are some lovely items for sale...and postage has been donated too so you will pay no postage. Here is a sample of what's available:

Vintage Fabric Monogrammed Cards - $15

Green Polka Dot Pins - $5

Gum tree dress - so cute! $30

Do you have spare craft/art supplies you could donate?

2011-01-12T15:53:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

I do volunteer work assisting asylum seekers. Currently I'm helping out a woman from the Congo (central Africa) who is seeking refugee status in Thailand.

She is unable to work and is just sitting in her room all day, waiting for her refugee claim to be assessed, which is going to take many more months and perhaps years.

She has suffered terribly in her home country, witnessing atrocities and deaths of family members. I would really like to be able to send her some craft or art supplies to give her something to do during the day.

I've sent her a few cross-stitch kits but she's finished those. I was wondering, does anyone have some light-weight extra craft or art supplies they don't need?

I will pay for the postage costs to Thailand.

thankyou!
Emma

Map of DR Congo, in Central Africa

Which font?

2011-01-09T14:20:00.000-08:00

Which logo?

2011-01-08T18:01:00.000-08:00

Our tacky Christmas tree

2010-12-25T14:23:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas all!

I have been waiting a week to post this, because my internet connection is bonkers and I haven't been able to up-load photos.

My cousin Rob and his wife Mairead are visiting us from Ireland for Christmas. They are wonderful cooks and the house is full of yummy, yummy food. Today they made olive tapenade, hummous, and babba ganoush and I am in dip heaven!

Last week Mairead had the idea of making a Christmas tree using a branch from a gum tree. We grabbed some of my spray-paints and painted the leaves red (yes, they match Mairead's hair!)

Then we we painted the trunk bright green and went into town to buy some tacky lights which we wrapped around the stem and put into the leaves. Here's what it look like up:

It is completely tacky and ridiculous and we LOVE IT! (The rest of the family don't seem so keen but the whole thing cost $10 so we don't care).

Merry Christmas to all.

House Portrait

2010-12-09T23:36:00.001-08:00

I was lying in bed the other day thinking random thoughts and one particularly random thought came up, 'Gee...I just love pen and ink drawings. I wish I could do something like that.'

So I opened up Photoshop and found a photo of my dad's farm where I'm living at the moment.

I used Photoshop to put a layer over the photo, and then I just started tracing everything I saw. I did it freehand, because I wanted it to look a bit quirky and messy - not like an architectural drawing.

After I'd finished tracing and drawing (it took about three hours) I deleted the house photo and was left with just the tracing. Here's what it looked like:

I quite like it. I love all the little details, like the gate that's almost falling down.

I'm thinking of getting it printed onto paper, just in a small size (around 4 inches long) and framing it for my dad for Christmas.

Alchemy II

2010-12-04T14:37:00.000-08:00

Last week I wrote about getting a little custom artwork made for me by a Bulgarian print-maker named Plamena Doycheva.

Because I do portraits on commission I was interested to try out the commission process from the other side, and so far it's been really interesting and enjoyable.

Plamena saw my portraits and asked if I wanted to incorporate a child into the artwork. This is what she sent me:

I loved the layout of the piece, but I didn't really like the child. Perhaps I've been doing too many portraits, but the child just reminded me of work (and stress!)

So, the child was taken out and this was the next sketch, which had a volcano instead of the child. I loved this.

I was really interested in learning about the print-making process and Plamena wanted to know about making stencils, so we've been exchanging photos.

Once Plamena has the basic sketch, she uses metal plates (washed with some kind of chemical) and some etching tools to etch the design in. These are some photos of the plates, tools, and her etched design.

I can't wait to see how it turns out. I really like the whole feel of the piece, and how the quote is wrapped around the image.

So, stay tuned - I'll post an image of the final artwork when I get it. (It's a Christmas present to myself - along with some bikinis. Yes, I know - where am I going to wear bikinis?? But, they were so cute!)

Alchemy

2010-11-24T17:36:00.000-08:00

I am commissioning a small artwork - fun, fun, FUN! I've been working really hard on my portrait making over the past few weeks, so I've decided that my Christmas present to myself will be a little artwork.

I wrote my request on Etsy's Alchemy, which is nifty little part of Etsy where you can request custom items. I requested a custom artwork which incorportated this quote by George W Bush.

"Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is healed. This is an ancient and eternal law."

(Nahhh...just kidding folks. It's by the Buddha, of course!)

One of the artists who responded to my request was a print maker from Bulgaria, named Plamena Doycheva. (I just knew she was going to be good - a Bulgarian print-maker - how exotic!)

Here are some examples of her work.

It's so intricate, and with such a soft and sensitive use of color. Plamena and I are going to exchange some e-mails and then she'll do some drafts for me. I'll let you know how the artwork turns out. I can't wait!

Shalebug

2010-11-22T21:59:00.000-08:00

I got a portrait order this week that was quite unlike any other I've done and made me feel lucky to have stumbled across this portrait making gig.

Tanis, a mom from Canada, e-mailed to ask me if I'd do a portrait to commemorate her son Shale, who had passed away. She wanted it as a Christmas present for her husband. Shale was a cutie-pie blondy, born with disabilities, who died when he was almost 5.

Tanis, it turns out, is pretty much famous in Canada for her blog Attack of the Redneck Mommy, where she writes posts that are crazy funny (Television and Tampons - a Bad Mix) or heartbreakingly sad (Life and Death). She is a gifted writer, and as I worked on the portrait I went back and forth reading different posts about her life since Shale passed away.

After Shale died, Tanis and her family decided to adopt a child with special needs. After several years they became the 'forever family' to a little boy named Jumby. During the adoption process they discovered that Jumby was born on October 21st, the same date that Shale died.

It is a good thing I design my portrait on the computer because if I'd have been doing it on paper Tanis would have received it with little teary splotches on it.

What I love about Tanis' blog is that she is unflinchingly frank and honest. She doesn't adopt some kind of saintly image (see: Burning for You). She doesn't see herself as heroic for having given birth to a child who had disabilities, watched him die suddenly, and then adopt another special needs child with an uncertain future (although I happen to think she is very heroic). The way Tanis writes, this is just her life and she's living it day to day, her way, the best that she can.

I suppose we are all doing that; just putting our best foot forwards and trying to live a life that is true and real.

Thanks Tanis. It was an honor to do a portrait of your beautiful Shalebug.

Photo Guide

2010-11-16T22:00:00.000-08:00

This is a guide to choosing a good photo for a stencil-style portrait. Here are a few tips -

1) Probably the most important thing is to take high-resolution photos, where the child's face is prominant in the photo. Photos taken on phones are usually fuzzy and low resolution - I need photos taken on cameras, and it's a good idea to put your camera on its highest megapixel setting before you start snapping!

This is an example of a photo where the child's face is clear and prominant.

2) This is an example of a striking part-profile photo.

3) Photos where a child's personality really 'jumps out' often work well.

Please e-mail photos in the largest file size you have to emma@bluedaydesigns.net
Please don't hesitate to e-mail with any questions.

If you have an on-line photo album you're welcome to send me the link and I'll flick through the photos looking for ones that might suit.

Click here to go back to my store, and here's my on-line folio, with more portrait examples.

thanks!

Emma

Mini Portrait - Sample Photos

2010-08-20T19:40:00.000-07:00

Folio

2010-08-15T17:23:00.000-07:00

A folio of my work - from my Etsy store, Blue Day Designs.

Self portrait - ideas

2010-07-22T03:53:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking of doing a self portrait, and have been mucking around with a photo of me in profile with some different backgrounds. My portraits are usually very minimalist, but for this one I've been thinking of trying to put a background in.

Any thoughts or opinions? Let me know! I'm not sure which background I like. The green splotchy background is part of the background from the original photo (which I've put down the bottom). I think I like the distorted text background the best. (I got that funky typewriter font from dafont.com.)

5 Tips for writing better Etsy descriptions...

2010-06-25T19:11:00.000-07:00

I'm no great expert, but I love writing, so here goes:

1) If I'm shopping on Etsy and I see spelling or grammatical errors it negatively affects the way I think about the store. My first tip is to get your announcement, profile page, and a selection of descriptions, paste them into Word, and run them through spell check.

2) Look at your descriptions. Are your descriptions divided up into small, bite-sized paragraphs of around 5-7 lines each? If they go on longer than this, consider breaking them up. I don't know about other shoppers but I find long chunky paragraphs of 10 or 12 lines quite overwhelming and I won't read them.

3) If your items are fairly straightforward and don't need a lot of description, consider bulking out your descriptions by offering links to other items that this particular item would suit.

For example, "this small artwork of a bear makes a great match with my other elephant print here... give url." I've seen some stores that do this kind of thing but don't give links. I'm a lazy shopper - if you give me a link I'll probably check it out. If you don't, I won't!

4) If your descriptions are quite long, consider dividing them up into sections. I have long descriptions, so I have a first section which gives a general description of the item and the most important details about it.

Then I write something like "The Fine Details" - or "The Nitty-Gritty" - and go onto give a heap of boring but necessary information. Since the customers know they are going to be boring details, they hopefully don't mind so much!

5) Not everyone looking at your Etsy store understand words like 'convo'. Make it easier for people to contact you by putting your convo url link in your description. "Please e-mail with any questions - click here to contact me..."

I'm now off to follow my own advice, and run my descriptions through spal cek. Hope this was useful!

Emma

Beautiful Jewelry Photos on Etsy

2010-06-21T20:07:00.000-07:00

I started a little forum topic on Etsy a few days ago that's had some wonderful contributions - all putting forward their favorite jewelry photos.

So, I thought I'd do a little blog post featuring some of the suggested photos. Prepare to drool...

Bokeh Love - by Wild Wonderful

Sterling Silver Necklace, by Huismus

Jenny, by AmberSky

Silver Belt Buckle - by Lizard Jewelry

Mandala Ring - by Lisa Hopkins

Cosmopolital - by LesCreationsDeji

KathiRoussell

Blue Bubble Bangle - Taylor's Eceletic

Another new dress...

2010-06-19T22:16:00.000-07:00

I've been shopping up a storm on Etsy over the past few months. This is my latest purchase - a soft, thick, fleece dress from Reconsumed. This dress is almost unbelievably warm. It's freezing today in Ballarat and I was toasty and warm inside it.

The dress comes with a really cute hood as well, and lovely applique. (I'm not normally an applique fan - but this was really classy).

The craziest thing about this dress? It's made from recycled plastic bottles! I'd never have guessed - it just feel like soft fleece.

Reconsumed was very accomodating, and made my dress with long sleeves. It can also be made in different colors. Here's one of her other items...I want this top!!

A Felting Disaster Averted...

2010-06-05T02:40:00.000-07:00

About a month ago I bought this gorgeous cowl/shrug pattern from Vital Temptation on Etsy.

Vital Temptation sells knitted and felted items, but also some of her own patterns. Isn't this cowl beautiful? It has a really sculpted quality to it. And those balls - so unique.

My lovely aunty is an amazing knitter, so I asked if she could make it for me. (It's knitted, and then at the end you throw it in the washing machine for the felting part).

My aunt ran into a teeny, tiny problem with the washing machine part. She has a machine that doesn't allow the cycle to be disturbed half way through, so, after about an hour, she opened the washing machine door to find a tiny, little shrug. It looked it would fit a doll - or maybe a little dog. But, when I put it on, I wrapped it around my neck and it makes the most gorgeous neckwarmer. Yay - success snatched from the jaws of felting defeat!

The circles are made by putting round balls - made from wood, or acorns, or something similar - into the knit before putting the cowl into the washing machine. Then, when the felting is finished, the balls are taken out, and the wool keeps the circular shape.

I think I'll get heaps more wear out of this than I would out of the bigger cowl. It's really soft, and warm, and has this amazing sculpted look. So, thanks Aunty Munga - awesome job, as usual!

(My aunt was proud of not being on the internet, but, sorry Munga, you've now been BLOGGED ABOUT!)

My two shop banners...

2010-05-28T00:05:00.000-07:00

My Etsy shopping expedition Pt 2

2010-05-27T15:28:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I wrote about my little Etsy shopping expedition. Today I'm going to show off a few of my purchases.

Check me out in my gorgeous green dress from Tasi Fashions. Tasi I love you - cos you love my curves! This dress is made from a medium thickness jersey fabric, and it is extremely comfortable. I travelled in this dress last week and felt perfectly comfortable as I went from train to bus to tram.

I love the cowl on this dress - you can wear it different ways too. It can be off the shoulder, or pushed right back. A beautiful design. I do have to work on getting a good belt to go with the dress, this one's a bit too plain.

And - some new earrings! These are from Etsy store, Wallis Designs. This isn't the best photo, but they are a rich, sparkly, blue and lovely quality earrings. Nancy Wallis takes beautiful photos of her earrings - the colors jump off the page. I can't resist her work.

I'll be back over the next few weeks with more of my buys, including another dress (naughty, naughty), and a PDF cowl/shrug patter that my lovely aunt is knitting for me. Stay tuned...

A guide to choosing a photo for a stencil portrait

2010-05-23T16:58:00.000-07:00

This post is intended for people who are interested in getting a portrait made through my Etsy store.

Here are some things to look for when choosing or taking photos:

1) High-resolution photos, where the child's face is prominant in the photo. (Photos of around 3MB and upwards are good).

2) A clear, striking photo where the subject's face or profile can be seen clearly. This is an example of a good profile photo (I've blended the two photos to make the portrait).

Here's an example of a good part-profile shot-

3) Look for spontaneity and animation rather than staged portrait photos. Photos where a child's personality really 'jumps out' often work well.

4) It's great to use a photo where the person is wearing an item that they often wear, which helps distinguish them. In this example, this boy's face is framed beautifully by a hat and scarf.

5) Serious, intense shots of young children can be quite stunning in black and white. In this photo you can see the child's face takes up about 1/4 of the photo - this is good. If the face is too small within the photo it's hard for me to get the detail needed.

Please send photos in the largest file size you have to emmacorcoran AT aussiebroadband.com.au

Some photos work better than others, so feel free to send me through as many as you like. If you have an on-line photo album you're welcome to send me the link and I'll flick through the photos looking for ones that might suit.

I hope this guide has been helpful. Please don't hesitate to comment, or e-mail, with any questions.

Click here to go back to my store, and here's my on-line folio, with more portrait examples.

thanks!

Emma
Blue Day Designs

The Lonesome Cowboy - on the road (literally).

2010-05-15T01:18:00.000-07:00

In my last post I wrote about designing my 'Lonesome Cowboy' stencil. It's going to be a large, spray-painted stencil - but I've also made a little mini portrait from the design. (People who order a large stencil portrait from me get a free mini one as well).

The mini portraits go onto a tiny canvas (just 5cm x 7cm - sorry no conversion to inches, it's after 5pm and my brain is on strike). I was so pleased at how the design looked I went outside to take some photos in the setting sun.

I was taking photos on the verandah and then looked at the road in front of my house. The colors on the road were beautiful in the dimming sun, so I thought I'd put the lonesome cowboy out into his natural habitat. Here he is staring across the paddocks, wistfully thinking of his gal, and wondering when he'll get to see her again...(dang the professional rodeo tour!)

The Lonesome Cowboy 1

2010-05-07T16:11:00.000-07:00

I'm currently working on a portrait of a young boy from Texas. Check out this photo - I love it!

The portrait is going to be called 'The Lonesome Cowboy.' The hat is a great feature, and I like that the photo is not some staged, portrait-type photo - there's real character and expression on the boy's face. These kind of natural shots seem to work much better for stencil portraits than the more formal studio portrait photo.

I'm going to write a few blog posts about the process of doing this portrait - so any budding stencilers out there can get an idea of how it's done. This first post is about using Photoshop to make the design of the mouth. Here's a photo of the LC's mouth:

To help me get the lines, and a general shape for this mouth I go into Photoshop and play around with a few different effects. The first is the Threshold Filter (Filter>Adjustment>Threshold.) It takes all the color out of an image and then allows you to move a little arrow up and down on a scale to get different levels of dark and light.

Here's what I get:

This is pretty good - it gives an outline of the shape of his mouth, and also a nice little indent in his lower lip, which I'll use.

Then, I put it through the Stamp Filter (Filter>Sketch>Stamp). Stamp does pretty much what it says - it converts and image into a black and white stamp. Sometimes it's really helpful. This time it doesn't give much, but it does give me that nice white line at the top, which is the upper line across the LC's lip.

Once I've used both those images, and done a fair amount of drawing - this is what the LC's mouth looks like -

It's less smoother than the mouth in the Threshold Filter - I've given it a bit of a different shape, and added lines for his cute little chin dimple, and jaw line. It's amazing how just playing around with a couple of lines around someone's mouth alters the whole look of their face.

This is the final design of his whole face:

I'm really pleased with the overall design, and, more importantly, so is the LC's mum!

Next week I'll make a post showing how this design is made into a stencil, so stay tuned cowboys! (and cowgirls...)

My Etsy shopping expedition...

2010-05-06T15:26:00.000-07:00

I've had two stencil portrait sales in the last week, so I've been shopping up a storm on Etsy. I hardly ever buy new clothes - most of my clothes come either from my three sisters, or from op-shops, so I've been having great fun discovering all the beautiful clothes stores on Etsy. I thought I'd share some of my faves in this post.

It's going into winter here, so these are all clothes designed to keep you snug and warm...

Sandmaiden is probably my all-time favorite clothing shop. So stylish and practical - (no bare midriffs here, but lots of stretchy, asymmetrical pieces to cover any muffin tops. ) This is a felted wool knit, made from merino wool - yummy! I'm loving the cowl neckline...

This beautiful green dress is currently on its way to me from Tasi, an Israeli designer. I can't wait till it arrives. Tasi's whole shop is full of clothing made to flatter a woman...(I have to say I haven't seen many size one fluro hotpants on Etsy - their clothes designers seem to have actually looked at a woman's body before desiging clothes for it.)

And for the really cold days, how about a new coat? I love this, but I'll need a few more stencil portrait orders before I can buy it. From Canadian store Little Houses, this to-die-for pink coat -

Two Features - in one week!

2010-04-30T18:23:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling quite chuffed today because I've had two features on different websites in the past week.

One feature was teeny tiny - about miniature art for small apartment spaces. It was on a very cool website called Apartment Therapy, and showed a mini portrait of my nephew Callum.

(Remember that hilarious episode of Seinfeld where George fancied himself as a hand model? I was thinking of that while I was taking this photo...somehow I don't think I'm going to get approached by a hand modelling agency!) I'm waiting until Callum is old enough to be bribed into holding his own portrait. At the moment, I think he'd eat it .

The other feature is on parenting site iVillage.com, and lists The 11 Gifts You Really Want for Mother's Day and mine is number one! Yay! It shows a big stencil I did a few months ago, of one of my other nephews.

So, a good marketing week for Blue Day Designs!

New Stencil Design - your preference?

2010-04-20T14:54:00.000-07:00

I've just started working on a stencil design of one of my sisters. (She doesn't know yet, and I don't know whether she'll be pleased or mortified to be immortalized in spray-paint.)

I've got two designs that I've done some rough work on, but I'm not sure which one I like the most.

Here are the original photos:

The first is of my sister holding our nephew, and in the other she's with our dad.

I put them through a few filters in Photoshop (changing them to black and white, and mucking around with the contrast) until I got something that looks stencil-like.

Here's the first one. (With dad cut out - I'm fairly sure he wouldn't like the spray-paint treatment!) I've done about an hour's work on this, and it's still pretty rough - but I think it's got potential. I really like the hair, and I've changed the way her shoulders slant, putting the LH shoulder higher, to give her a more relaxed, spontaneous look. (Amazing how just a few little strokes can change the overall look.)

The other design is still very basic, not even a proper stencil yet, just a black and white photo. But, I can see it would probably come out ok, because my sister's face has some strong lines in it, and I also like the overall shape - an adult, wrapped around and looking over, a child.

So, I'll just keep playing around with these two and let you know what happens. I'm thinking of spraying it in bright green - just for something a bit different. Love to know what you think! Which picture appeals to you more?

Stencil Tutorials

2010-04-13T18:16:00.000-07:00

Here's a list of stencil tutorials that I used to help me get started. There's a heap more out on the net, but these are some of my faves. Enjoy!

This Stencil Graffiti tutorial is a fantastic and in-depth tute on designing, cutting, and spraying stencils.

If you've always wondered how to make a stencil of Dick Cheney using Photoshop, today's your lucky day - here's a tutorial.

Another Photoshop tutorial, but this time with more appealing subject matter - Blondie. Part 2 of this tutorial is about cutting and stencil design and putting it onto a t-shirt.

From Black Kitty blog, a very cool little tute on doing your own stencil portrait. A great tute for beginners.

Here's a tute on spraying a multi-colored stencil, and another with lots of information about stenciling materials, and photos of stencils to inspire you.

Also check-out You Tube, which has a heap of stencil tutorials.

Banksy - Maid in London.

Baby Elephant Stencil

2010-04-06T02:38:00.000-07:00

I've had a sweet victory over a problem I've had stenciling onto stretched canvas, so I thought I'd share my new stenciling technique here.

Stretched canvas like this -

-is on a wooden frame. The problem I've had is that when I press the stencil design down onto the canvas the design becomes unstuck because the canvas has too much 'give' to it. This results in more underspray (where spray paint finds its way underneath the stencil outline). It's bad...very bad.

It's much easier to press a design down onto a completely flat surface and I've just come up with a solution where I can have my cake and eat it too - stencil onto a flat surface, and end up with a stencil on a stretched canvas.

I started off with this baby elephant photo -

and made this design -

When I'd cut out the very fiddly little stencil it looked like this-

Then I got this flat canvas panel -

and spray-painted onto it instead of a stretched canvas. I sprayed adhesive spray on the back of the stencil, pressed it down with my fingers, then rolled over it with a rolling-pin and got that stencil well and truly stuck to the canvas.

The result? 100% success! No underspray at all. A totally clean, clear, spray.

Then, I got a stretched canvas, spraypainted its sides black, and glued the canvas panel with the elephant on it, onto the stretched canvas.

Below is the final product. I think it looks good - having a black border to the stencil gives it a sharp look, and, although it costs me a few dollars more to use a flat panel as well as a stretched canvas, it's worth it becuase I can get a perfect result.

A Stencil for My Brother

2010-03-30T16:13:00.000-07:00

About 4 months ago my brother Pat, who lives in England, asked me to do a stencil for his newly renovated house. Just being asked to do the stencil was quite a compliment because my brother is an industrial designer and very particular about his house furnishings.

To give you an example - he painted his living-room seven times before he got exactly the right shade of white he wanted. (And he only got that by mixing two other shades together.) After the room had been painted he ordered some furniture on-line and said he nearly vomited when his couch arrived and it wasn't quite the right shade of white. I didn't know that there was more than one shade of white...let alone seven.

So, getting this request from my brother was very flattering. (Kind of a like a first year piano student being called up to conduct the London Philharmonic!) For the stencil design I picked a photo that I'd taken about 2 years ago of my nephew Aidan. This is one of my favorite photos, and it really captures Aidan's gentle and contemplative personality.

After putting it through a few filters in photoshop, I came up with this rough idea.

Pat loved it, and I worked on it for ages - just trying to get Aidan's face (particularly his mouth) right, and also making sure that all the white parts of the design were connected up. When you make a stencil you can't have any 'white islands' because once you start cutting the stencil out all the islands will fall out and the design will be ruined. If you look at Aidan's eyes you'll see that I couldn't have a white dot (for his iris) as an island in the middle of the eye - I had to draw a line connecting the white of the iris with the white of his face.

This was the final stencil design.

I sprayed the stencil onto flat canvas, then rolled it up and sent it over to Pat. Here's a close up photo I took before I sent it (unfortunately the stencil wasn't completely flat, so it looks a bit kinky).

This are the photos he just sent me. I'm really pleased with it.

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2010-03-29T15:20:00.000-07:00

Choosing a photo to make a stencil

2010-03-27T03:00:00.000-07:00

I’ve done a little bit of charcoal sketching in the past, but I’m no artist, so to get stencil designs I start off with a photo. This photo is of my sister, Maz, standing at the side of our parent's house.

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There are a couple of reasons why this photo was ideal to make a stencil with. Firstly, it really looks like my sister. She has a particular way of standing - a tilt to her head and shoulders - which makes this photo immediately recognisable as her. I’ve realized if I want to get a stencil that really looks like someone, then the photo has to really look like them to begin with!

I think it also helps that Maz is pretty much made up of dark and light shades. It’s really important that the face has some shadows, because otherwise there’s very little to work with in a black and white stencil! Maz also has some bold features that work well in a stencil – she has a sharp kind of hairstyle, an angular face, sunglasses, and a scarf.

So, if you’re looking through your photo collection for something to make a stencil with look for photos with a lot of contrast, shadows, and bold, strong features. You’ll probably have more luck with these kinds of photos.

Here’s a photo of the finished stencil of my sister. I was pretty pleased with it. My litmus test of whether or not it was an accurate portrait was to ask my three year old nephew. “Who’s this?” I asked, holding up the stencil in front of him. He looked at it for about 2 second before smiling and saying, “Auntie Mazzy.” Success!

If you don’t have any of your own photos to make stencils from then just do a search in Google Images. You’ll probably come up with hundreds of images, so just scan through them for ones that jump out as being possible stencil material. You can adjust your image search so that you only get black and white photos – sometimes these are easier to get stencil designs from.