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Monday, December 23, 2013

Moroccan Stencils

Yesterday I went to the Bellevue Art Museum to see the exhibition A World of Paper, A world of Fashion, Isabelle de Borchgrave Meets Mariano Fortuny.  I was enthralled.  The patterns on the paper fabrics and backgrounds for the paper dresses was absolutely unbelievably beautiful.  If I could have taken photos I would have.  Instead I am going to return to the museum with my sketchbook and colored pencils to catch the color choices for the "fabrics".  If you do not know Isabelle de Borchgrave, do a  Google search.  You will be rewarded.

My mind will not turn off since.  It was one of those exhibitions where one walks away with motivation and stimulation to create.  So today I researched Moroccan designs and found one that I liked and thought would be good to start.  In Photoshop I uploaded the tile design and duplicated it to create ......


 I then created the design below.

After most of the morning I had three stencils for my journal background
stencil (cut) #1

stencil (cut) #2

stencil (cut) #3
After using the three stencils I had the following background in my journal.  I really liked it and was pretty satisfied.  Then I tried little blue punch-outs in the center of each main design and WOW!

Here is the final background.....


The blue makes it pop even more.  Now the next issue is to somehow incorporate my design into my barn series.  Yes, Ingrid, this is coming to you next month.

8 comments:

anonymous said...

Oh - wonderful! Thanks for the introduction. How did you do your stencils - are they painted or Photoshopped? A friend persuaded me to go to the Isabella Blow exhibition at Somerset House recently (see the dezeen.com slide show) but I think I prefer your artist!

amy of studio four corners said...

impressive - I love it....and likewise - how did you do the stencils...it looks like you actually cut out a stencil and then painted...now you have my mind going too!

Cate Rose said...

Fabulous. And yeah, how DID you cut those stencils??

john said...

Ha! I thought someone would ask about the stencils. I printed the design on Tyvek and then hand cut three stencils. I just did a blue one and it turned out amazingly well, too. Happy holiday!

ingridp said...

Magic John, you are really clever with your scissors.
Don't cover it up to much. Pic a tiny barn.
:)

Seth said...

These are amazing. And so is that fact that not only were you were inspired by something but you took action by creating these. Impressive.

tgarrett said...

Very impressive stencils john.

Michele R. Unger said...

Wow! You certainly took the Isabelle de Borshgrave exhibit and ran with it. Those stencils are fantastic, John. Lovely work.