How to Make a Stencil continued

Use your Stanley knife to trace over the dark shapes you have picked out and remove these cut pieces from the plastic sheet

Un-tape the copy of the photo or drawing from the plastic sheet. Label this plastic sheet

DARK

Medium Stencil

Using the second copy of the photo or drawing of your choice, find the medium (gray-ish) values in your drawing or picture

Repeat steps 2 - 6 using a pencil instead of a black marker, and a second plastic sheet, ensuring you do these for the medium values instead of the dark values. Label this sheet MEDIUM

Final Product

Place the MEDIUM stencil on your desired surface. (A piece of paper, a wall or a canvas)

Select the lighter shade of acrylic spray paint. Practise on a spare sheet of paper to make sure you get the right distance, usually far away from your canvas

Spray the colour over the stencil until you get the desired pigment. Some artists prefer dark, dripping stencils while others prefer a lightly misted imprint

If you use tubes of paint instead of spray paint, use the stencil brush to apply as much colour as you would like to the cutout areas of the stencil. Wait for the paint to dry before removing the MEDIUM stencil

Place the DARK stencil on your desired surface. Match it up to the same position the last stencil was placed

Except for a small amount of possible overlap, the colour you applied before should not be present where your cut-outs are for this stencil

Select the darker shade of acrylic paint and spray or paint this colour over the stencil

Wait for the paint to dry (very important) before removing your DARK stencil

You are now done!