The Stencil Studio Blog

Nov 24

Brilliant FREE Banksy Graffiti App for iPhone -

Make your own graffiti with this very cool app for iphone, ipad etc.

• Choose a background from 25+ or take a photo and use it as a background
• Choose from a great range of Banksy stencils
• Resize the stencil or invert it
• Spray can noise, adjust spray size, rainbow of colours to choose from
• Shake the phone for spray can ‘rattle’ and erase last action
• Get paint drips for brilliant graffiti effect
• Send your artwork to iBanksy.com gallery or Facebook

Tag your cat!

We love it, and it’s FREE for a limited time only so don’t hang around, search iBanksy in the App Store.

Nov 17

20 ways with 1 stencil ! -

How many ways can you use a stencil?

We take one design and one wall and explore the possibilities..

Oct 23

Shading with stencils

How to create a beautiful shaded effect using stencils.





Simple Hibiscus Stencil from The Stencil Studio

Start with a simple design. This technique involves building up layers of colour and concentrating the paint around the very edges of each cut out area. We’ve chosen The Stencil Studio’s Simple Hibiscus stencil as it features large paintable areas. This method is a little time consuming so it’s possibly not an ideal for painting an allover pattern or large room. This is, however, a great way of adding depth and interest to your stenciling for smaller projects, furniture, fabric stenciling and if you have the time (and patience) walls.




Here we’ve applied the stencil to a piece of furniture. See how the inner parts of each stenciled area are lighter in colour than the edges.


Choose which sort of paint you are going to use. For furniture and walls with a matt finish oil-based paintsticks and water-based acrylics work well. You will also need good quality soft stencil brushes, ideally one brush for each colour. For this pink Hibiscus just one brush will be necessary. The size of brush will depend on the size of the stencil, you’ll need the brush to be large enough to get a fair coverage of paint across the stencil but small enough to work within the smaller details of each cut out area. We’ve explained the method for both types of paint below. You can find brushes in our Supplies Category here, we don’t stock paints but a search for stencil paints or Paintsticks should help.


 Position the stencil and fix with tape or spraymount.        Painting the first layer of colour.

Position the stencil and fix with spray adhesive (spray the back of the stencil and leave to dry, this will give a tackiness similar to a ‘post-it’ note) or use pieces of stencil tape at the edges. This is important as you don’t want the stencil to move whilst you’re painting it. You can find stencil tape in our Supplies Category here.


Building up the colour around the edges only.              Removing the stencil.

Concentrate the colour around the cut edges only, ignoring the central parts of each cut out area. Try to blend the paint so there is a gradual change, getting darker towards the edges of the stencil. Keep adding colour to the edges only until you have the desired colour. Don’t worry about the central areas being lighter, as long as you have applied paint to all the cut edges of the stencil your design will show.



 The finished stencil.                          Reposition the stencil and start again!

Stenciling method for oil-based paintsticks

• Cut a thin slice off the end of the paintstick to reveal the softer paint beneath.
• Take a stencil brush and dab the brush onto the end of the paint, pick up enough paint to lightly coat the end of the brush.
• Swirl the brush firmly onto a paper towel or plate, this will evenly distribute the paint into the bristles and remove excess from the brush.
• This is called the ‘Dry Brush Technique’ as there will be very little paint on the brush.
• Keep the brush at a 90 degree angle to the stencil to avoid getting paint beneath the stencil.
• Use a swirling motion and start to apply paint to the stencil, concentrate the paint around the cut edges only, leaving the central parts of each cut area with very little paint.
• Press the brush firmly to use all paint, only add more paint when absolutely necessary.
• Add a second layer of paint, blending into the previous layer and adding more colour to the cut edges only,  keep building colour until you have the effect you want. Remove the stencil.
• Paintsticks have a longer drying time than water based paints so it’s easy to blend the colours together and get really nice soft effects.
• Paintsticks have a translucent quality which makes them ideal for this technique.
• Paintstick will take longer to dry so take care not to smudge of knock your painting, protect further with a layer of varnish if you like.
• Wash your brushes with white spirit or turps, then rinse with warm soapy water, ensure brushes are dry before further use.

Stenciling method for water-based acrylic paints.

• Choose thick paint for this technique. Artists acrylic paints or paints developed especially for stenciling are best.
• Pour or spoon out a little paint onto a plate or scrap of card, take a tiny amount of paint onto the end of the brush.
• Swirl the brush onto a clean part of the plate or card, this will distribute the paint and remove excess from the brush.
• Keep the brush at a 90 degree angle to the stencil whilst painting to avoid getting paint beneath the stencil.
• Using an up and down or stabbing motion, start to apply paint to the stencil.
• Concentrating the colour around the cut edges of the stencil only, blend the paint so that the colour is lighter or there is no colour in the central parts of each cut out area.
• Only add more paint to the brush when absolutely necessary, it’s important to work with an almost dry brush blending the colour away from the cut edges.
• Keep adding colour to the cut edges until you have the effect you want. Remove the stencil.
• You could also lighten your chosen shade with a little white paint and use the lighter colour for general coverage, adding the darker tone to the cut edges of the design, this would work well if you were stenciling onto a darker colour.
• Wash your stencil and brushes with warm water, ensure stencil brushes are completely dry before use.

Stenciled chest of drawers for a nursery or childs room.
Where would you like to go now?
Home Page. Back to Tutorials. Buy stencils. See Simple Hibiscus Stencil. See Galleries.

Oct 14

How to paint a multi layered stencil

Single layer stencils will give great results and are very easy to use, simply position the stencil, paint it and then remove it. Multi layered stencils or stencil overlays can be used to paint one colour on top of another with even greater results. It’s amazing how a simple design can be transformed into something very impressive, and you don’t need to be an artist, just follow our simple steps below.

We’re going to use The Stencil Studio’s 4 layered Michael Jackson stencil for this tutorial but the principle is the same for any number of stencil layers. Stencils will be marked with a layer number so start with layer number 1…



Layer 1

Background layer. This is a silhouette so it’s easy to see how big the whole design will be, position the stencil and paint it, in this case we’ve used black but you could paint it any colour you like. Remove the stencil and wait for the paint to dry before adding layer 2.




Layer 2

Use the positioning marks on the stencil (not shown) to correctly position the stencil sheet over the previously painted silhouette, choose a different colour, in this case grey, paint the stencil then remove.




Layer 3

Repeat the process, it’s important to wait for the paint to dry between applying each layer. This time we added the white layer.




Layer 4

Just a few shadows to add to the design in layer 4 so we used the black from layer 1.




And that’s it, how easy was that! Now experiment with colours, always keep the highlights lighter than the shadow areas.




Use your stencil on anything with any type of paint. Paint a canvas, use fabric paints for a t-shirt or stencil your walls, it’s up to you.

You can get great effects with spray paints.

or use fabric paints for a washable finish. Follow manufacturers instructions.

Go retro with an allover wallpaper effect in bright colours, or just use singularly. Stencils are truly versatile and unlike wall stickers and decals, you can use a stencil as many times as you like and choose paint colours to match your room scheme.

So what are you waiting for, get stenciling!

See our Famous Faces stencils range.

Oct 11

Hair graffiti: Livening up your locks | Health & Beauty -

Great use of stencils, in this case a doily was used as a stencil with wash out spray paints, so imaginative and so effective.

Oct 08

Going Grey Gracefully

Grey has no agenda… . Grey has the ability, that no other colour has, to make the invisible visible.

Roma Tearne, artist and writer.

I love bright colours but sometimes subtle is the way to go and often less is more. Stencils are so versatile, you could literally use a single stencil countless times in different ways, use different colours with different stenciling techniques and finishes. I love that you could give the same stencil to a hundred people and they would all end up with different results!

Nikki

The Stencil Studio - modern reusable stencils to buy online.