Ever since watching a You Tube video on raised stencils, I have wanted to try it! But life gets in the way and trying this technique was put on the back burner. Although it has taken awhile, I am finally ready to create a raised stencil! Here we go!
In the video I saw, they used a large stencil and glass bead gel. So I purchased the Diamond Flourish Redesign with Prima Stencil and Redesign Glass Bead Gel from Etsy.
Because I have never done this before I started small. Instead of starting on a large piece of furniture I used a piece of plywood to make wall art.
I painted the wood white and when it dried, I measured an inch in from the edge, taped it off and painted the interior black creating a faux frame around the border.
Before using the Re-Design Prima stencil, I measured the piece of wood to find the center.
I placed the stencil on the plywood making sure it was taped down so it would not move around.
The Re-Design Prima gel has pieces of glass mixed into a thin paste-like substance.
Here goes nothing!
It feels strange going on. It crunches as you are spreading it and it is thinner than I expected.
After covering the entire stencil, it was time to remove the excess.
I really was not sure how much to remove. It was such a thin layer I wasn’t sure it would be raised if I took off too much. In the end, I removed most of the layer on top.
I circled two areas in this picture. The smaller mark is where a piece of the stencil lifted up and the larger one was where I left a thicker layer of gel.
It lifted off easily with no sticking.
It definitely was not perfect. Where the stencil lifted, there was no definition and where I left a thicker layer of gel, it is darker than the rest. But it is pretty good for the first time!
It has to dry overnight before I can do anything to it.
From this angle you can really see how it is raised.
The gel dries clear and the glass pieces sparkle. I could leave it like this, and I may in future projects, but today is for learning to work with this medium.
Because the gel was clear, and the black showed through, I decided to highlight it with Rub n Buff antique gold metallic finish.
I use a chip brush for highlighting with gold because they are cheap and can be disposed of after. To prevent the brush from shedding, I cut it down.
When I dry brush, I use a piece of cardboard to off load most of the gold finish.
It was easy to highlight because the stencil was raised.
I also added gold to the frame because the white just did not go.
It almost looks like jewelry.
I used black paint to tone down the gold. I like the way it turned out and will definitely do it again next time on a piece of furniture. It should be fun!
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