Daphne Greig: Tutorial: Making Stencils to use with Paintstiks

In one of the exercises in my Fun with Paintstiks workshop at the Academy of Quilting I show you how to make your own freezer paper stencils. Here is an excerpt from the workshop.

Draw a shape onto the dull side of freezer paper and cut it out.

Here is a leaf I drew on my freezer paper. I cut it out carefully with sharp scissors. You will notice that I didn't cut into the leaf from the edge of the paper. It is more like a 'cookie cutter' cutout.

I tried my stencil on paper in a sketchbook first. I held the cut edges down as I painted to be sure the paint did not seep underneath. This was the result:

For my next exercise I ironed the stencil to a piece of orange cotton, shiny side down. Freezer paper adheres well and does not leave any residue on the fabric. I made sure all the cut edges were attached very well.

I used several paint colours and applied it with a stencil brush. I like to use another piece of freezer paper, shiny side up, as a palette. I spread a bit of paint on that piece of freezer paper and then swirl my stencil brush in it to load the brush. I can also blend colours together on my palette. I find it works better than trying to blend the colours on the fabric if I want more subtle shading.

Here is the finished leaf on the orange cotton fabric. You can see how crisp the edges are and how I painted more heavily around the edges of the leaf to make it stand out from the orange fabric.