First Friday Artist: Seth Apter

Detail of Stenciled Page

Seth is a wonderful artist and a fantastic community builder and supporter of art and artists through his blog The Altered Page. Many of you know him through teaching, his blog and his two books: The Pulse of Mixed Media (in which I'm proud to be included) and most recently The Mixed Media Artist. Here is Seth with a tutorial using stencils in an unexpected way.

Art products are like boomerangs. They may disappear for a while but you can always expect them to return. Stencils, for example, are having a renaissance. Today’s stencils are made of high quality material, have artist-driven designs, and are being used in new and innovative ways.

I am always experimenting with stencils in an attempt to find new ways to use them. I have recently been using stencil resists as a way to create background pages and add to my stash of designed paper to tear up for collages. In my exploration of possible products (all of which were already in my studio) to use for the resist technique, I discovered the Sharpie Meanstreak Permanent Marking Stick. This is a fade resistant, waterproof marker with a thick tip that is very effective for resists. Be aware though that while this marker is non-toxic, it does have a strong scent.

As a demonstration, I painted a piece of watercolor paper with acrylic paint.

I then used my three stencil designs from StencilGirl Products (Story Time, Unfinished, Numbers) and the Sharpie Meanstreak to create the resist. I simply placed sections of the stencils on the paper and rubbed the Sharpie over the stencil cuts. The application is imperfect but that only adds to the uniqueness of the final design.

I then created acrylic glazes by mixing Golden Fluid Acrylic Paints with Golden Acrylic Glazing Liquid. I brushed the glazes over sections of the paper and used a paper towel to pull some of the glaze off. The area that was covered with the Sharpie designs resists the glaze but not so much that you are left with a stark white design. Note that the more glaze you pull off with the paper towel, the stronger the resist. 

Thanks for this fun tutorial, Seth. How neat to see the evolution of this page. I'm going to be on the lookout for Sharpie Meanstreak markers. Can't resist a good resist :) Here is Seth's workshop lineup for 2014.

Have a happy weekend everyone. xo - Diana