Texture & Layers with Paint and Stencils

It’s National Craft Month! And in honor of all things crafty, we’re excited to take part in the Interweave blog hop. When asked what craft we would take to a desert island, of course the Cloth Paper Scissors team started thinking about Lisa Kesler’s highly textured multi-media project, which uses handmade stencils and found objects. Imagine yourself creating this textural masterpiece in an art hut in the tropics, with objects you find on the beach!


I used to think of myself as a watercolorist. I had the idea that you were supposed to specialize in a certain technique and label yourself accordingly. But after working for a large collaborative art studio that produced a variety of decorative art for furniture stores, department stores, and interior designers, I quickly let go of my self-imposed label. Provided with all of the materials, supplies, and studio space I needed and a task to be as innovative as I could, I did a lot of experimenting and began thinking of myself as simply an artist. From that point on, I have enjoyed taking traditional techniques in new directions.

My most recent paintings incorporate a richly textured surface, many layers of paint, simple shapes, and colored pencil highlights. I love watching the painting take shape as I build up the layers of texture and paint.

textured multi-media
“White Flower on Brown” • 12″ square

Materials

  • Hardboard panel, flat or cradled with sides (I use Ampersand™ Gessobord™; Masonite® sealed with gesso is another option.)
  • 3″-wide masking tape
  • Tracing paper
  • Pencil
  • Graphite stick or very thick, soft lead pencil
  • Ballpoint pen
  • Craft knife
  • Acrylic Molding Paste by Golden Artist Colors®
  • Plastic scrapers or small pieces of stiff cardboard
  • Found objects: bits of corrugated cardboard, bottle caps, jar lids, etc.
  • Assorted acrylic paints (I use matte acrylics.)
  • Paintbrushes: 1⁄4″–1″ wide, flat
  • Colored artist pencils (I use Prismacolor® pencils.)
  • Liquitex® Satin Acrylic Varnish optional

Optional

  • Painter’s masking tape
  • Palette
  • Brayer
textured multi-media
“White Leaves on Green” • 10″ square

Preparing the Surface

I make my textured paintings on hardboard panels like Masonite or Gessobord. The hard surface holds up well to the texture I apply. I like to use Gessobord because it is already primed. If you use an unprimed surface, such as Masonite, it will be necessary to seal it with a few coats of gesso before beginning your painting. If you are using a cradled Gessobord (a board with sides), cover the sides with painter’s masking tape to protect them and keep them clean.

Applying Texture

1. Completely cover the painting surface with strips of 3″ masking tape, each strip touching the next so that the entire surface is covered.

2. Using a piece of tracing paper the same size as your surface, make a simple drawing using basic shapes. The shapes can be abstract or realistic, but they should be silhouettes without a lot of detail.

3. Turn the drawing over and trace over the lines on the back with a graphite stick. Flip the drawing back over, so the right side is facing up, and place it on top of the tape-covered surface.

4. With a ballpoint pen, firmly trace over the outlines of a couple of shapes in your drawing. This transfers the outline of these shapes onto the tape-covered painting surface. The rest of the drawing will be transferred later.

5. Cut around the transferred shapes with the craft knife and peel off the background tape around them, leaving the tape shapes still on the surface of the board.

6. Apply the molding paste with a plastic scraper or a strip of cardboard to add texture to the background. It can be applied in any thickness, but I usually vary the thickness from about 1⁄16″–1⁄8″. Spread the paste over the entire surface using light pressure.

Note: As I drag the scraper across the surface, I am careful to allow some unevenness to remain. I may even leave a few little areas uncoated.

7. Stamp a few of your found objects into the surface of the molding paste while it is still wet to add more interest and texture. I like to use a variety of items. These marks will show in the background of the finished painting.

8. Peel up the remaining masking tape, revealing the recessed shapes. Allow this layer to dry completely, 3–8 hours, before proceeding.

textured multi-media
Left: Texture applied with molding paste and a wash of acrylic paint colors. Middle: The bird shapes were created using stencil shapes cut from masking tape and applying molding paste through the stencil. Right: The bird shapes were painted with a brush and then, using another cut stencil, more paint was rolled on with the brayer.

Painting

1. Apply a wash of 3–4 colors of watered-down acrylic paint over the whole surface with a large brush. This paint layer can be very loose and even sloppy because most of it will be covered up with subsequent layers. Allow it to dry, which only takes about 20 minutes.

2. Choose the main paint color for your background and paint it on. I use a brayer for this step. I place a small dollop of acrylic paint on my palette and roll over it several times in each direction with a printmaking brayer until the brayer is evenly coated with paint. Using large strokes, I roll the brayer over the entire surface to apply an even coat of paint.

3. Reload the brayer (or brush) several times and continue applying paint until you are satisfied with the appearance. This is my favorite step because the details of the texture gradually begin to emerge as I roll paint onto the surface. At this point, I can see little bits of the first wash of acrylic colors showing through the texture.

4. After the first color dries, roll on 1–2 more compatible colors. Each additional layer of color will add to the overall richness of the background. Allow the paint to dry.

More Texturing

1. Cover the painting surface with strips of masking tape again, and transfer the rest of the shapes from your drawing onto the painting surface by tracing over the lines of your drawing as before. Cut these new shapes out with the craft knife, but this time peel up the shapes rather than peeling the tape surrounding the shape.

2. Apply molding paste to the new recessed shapes, being careful not to let the paste seep under the edge of the surrounding masking tape.

3. Peel up the background masking tape to reveal the raised, textured shapes. If any molding paste has seeped under the masking tape to cause irregular edges on these shapes, scrape it off while it is still wet with the tip of the craft knife. Allow the shapes to dry before proceeding.

4. Using a smaller paintbrush, carefully paint the raised shapes with a solid coat of acrylic paint. If I want the shapes to have the same layered appearance as the background, I mask around the shapes with more tape and then roll on 1–2 additional colors of paint with a brayer in the same manner used to paint the background, removing the tape once the paint is dry.

Finishing

1. When the paint is dry, shade and highlight the recessed shapes using colored pencils.

2. Apply a thin, even coat of satin acrylic varnish to the surface to seal and protect it.

Using texture and layers in your acrylic painting, you can create a surface rich with detail, color, and character that no other technique can duplicate. The process and materials become an integral part of the painting. Even with simple shapes and composition, your painting can become a complex brocade of rich surfaces and sumptuous fragments of color.

Featured Image: “Distant Flight” • 10″ × 20″


More About Our National Craft Month Blog Hop

For those of you that aren’t familiar, a blog hop is a group of blogs that participate in writing around a shared theme. You can then hop from blog to blog to learn and explore all sorts of new ideas and perspectives.

Our group decided to throw a blog hop in honor of National Craft Month, and this year our theme is “What craft would you take to a desert island?”. On each day listed below, visit that website and scroll through the most recent blogs posted until you find the latest blog hop post. Click and enjoy hopping around!

March 1 – Interweave.com
March 4 – Sew Daily
March 7 – Crochet (Interweave)
March 11 – Jewelry (Interweave)
March 13 – Weaving (Interweave)
March 15 – Cloth Paper Scissors
March 18 – Knitting (Interweave)
March 20 – Spinning (Interweave)
March 22 – The Quilting Company
March 26 – Needlework (Interweave)
March 27 – Beading (Interweave)


Remember to pack your project ideas!

Categories

Blog, Mixed-Media Painting Techniques

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