Hallo there everyone!

It is me, Marlene Meijer-van Niekerk, from ART BY MARLENE, sharing a new tutorial on The Crafter’s Workshop blog. It is summer over here in Holland….and that is surely an inspiration to paint more flowers.

Today is all about using a stencil as a “spark of inspiration” and letting that be your springboard to get the creative juices flowing.

I am sure you all know the feeling, sitting down to create and not knowing where to start. I want to share a secret with you. Even the best artists get that feeling sometimes! What is important to overcome this, is just sitting down and starting… Today I will show you just one way of doing that!

I thought I would mention that The Crafter’s Workshop provided me with some products to create this project. This post may contain affiliate links, but, the opinions I share are solely my own.

I will be using a   The Crafter’s Workshop stencil(6″x 6″), designed by  Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, called  “mumsy”(TCW592).

To start: get out your most favorite colors of acrylic paint, a make-up wedge, a paintbrush, a black pencil, a white acrylic marker and some tipp-ex and join me in the making of……..this project.

I brayered on some red and neon pink onto the pages of my small dylusions journal. Although you don’t see the neon pink, it does brighten the all over color  alot.

Put out some white and yellow acrylic paint onto your mixing tray.  Pounce on some white paint through the middle flower of the stencil.( Don’t worry about getting it perfect, we will be letting the imagery lead us to a design.)

You should have something like this now. I found it a bit to small…..

So, I  had an idea, by extending the design right along  the sides, you can create bigger flowers, so that is what I will be doing.

In the beginning , you might think…”OH-no!”, but don’t worry, just go ahead and follow the instructions.

Once you have extended the stencil along all sides…it will look like a flower again!

Add a few more ‘white’ flowers.

Now go on and pounce your yellow paint through the flower, using the same steps as above.

Once your page is filled with large lush flowers…..you will suddendly realize. You now have created texture, you have made a composition and a underlayer for your design, without overthinking it! I use a tipp-ex correction pen to  draw in some flowers over the existing stenciled ones, letting the stencilled lines guide me.

It is always the best to have odd numbers of the same ‘type’ of flowers in your design. It keeps the design more natural. Make sure some flowers overlap the background flowers and others stay behind.

Choose a few flowers where you can add a white “border”…..keep it simple by using stripes the width of your paintbrush.

Add some magenta ‘rings’ to 3 flowers, it just makes the flowers pop!

With the background color I paint in some definition in the flowers, where the white paint was to messy for my taste.

Now by using turquoise, ‘push’ your background back , only leaving the flowers to shine.

Make some hearts/centers for your flowers with your turquoise paint.

Add some magenta to the middle of a few of the flowers, to balance it out.

Use your black pencil(stabilo all)and start adding stripes.

Outline some areas areas  and add detail

For this last step you will have to dig deep into your own creativity….

I used a white acrylic marker to draw very fine lines over the stencilled areas of 3 flowers, using my stabilo all pencil(activated with a water brush) I added some shading to turquoise  background. With my white marker  I also added some playfull dots to the design(and some gold ones) and with some green paint I added some leaves.

I hope you enjoyed this short tutorial on how to use a stencil as a spark of inspiration.

Be sure, if you try this at home, to share it with us on social media, for example ….instagram.

See you soon!

Marlene Meijer-van Niekerk

ART BY MARLENE

The Crafter’s Workshop Design Team Member