Stencil Project

I was asked by Mary Nasser- the woman that does the blog for Stencil Girl to do a project using some of their stencils.  Stencil Girl is MaryBeth Shaw's company.  http://www.stencilgirlproducts.com/
 I have enjoyed using stencils as design elements in some of my monoprint work.  My guest artist post is today.  I choose to make an Exploding Box.  As you will see the finished project is a box and once the lip is removed the box "explodes" apart. You can do a google search for directions to make one of these which is what I did.

Using heavy hot press watercolor paper I cut out the parts.

I decided I wanted to make the box look like an old brick building.  I painted the parts with a light colored paint first and then used a brick stencil.

To make the building look old I used a technique my friend John Arbuckle taught me. http://artjuvenation.blogspot.com/  To make it look like peeling paint I covered part of the pieces with petroleum jelly.  I painted a different color over that and it acts as a resist. When the paint was dry I rubbed off the paint that had the jelly underneath.  I loved the look this gave the box pieces.

I then printed out some windows I found online.  The stencil I decided to use are ones Seth Apter (http://thealteredpage.blogspot.com/) designed for Stencil Girl.  They are graffiti themed.  You can see on the piece for the lid I started on that.

I turned the piece over and collaged the inside of the box or building.

Next I painted the second box piece and then used the stencils on it.

Here you see the completed box exterior.  I used a fun tool called an eBrush to get the stencil designs on the box.  I felt it really mimicked the spray paint that is most often used on buildings.  http://www.craftwellusa.com/products/ebrush

Here is the box "exploded" open.  This was a lot of fun.  I think often artists forget to have fun with their work.  This was not only fun but I learned a lot using some techniques I seldom use.