Here are notes to the pictures.

1. Paper: The first stencil tutorial we'll be doing is on paper, which has different properties than say Bristol, Watercolor, Cardboard, Cardstock, etc. When you stencil take into consideration, are you clumsy? careful? delicate? have a heavy hand? Pick what suits you.

2. Life Drawing: Is crucial in learning how to stencil well. My stencil after a life drawing class were several hundred percents better than before. When you stencil are you focusing on the image? If you are, you have almost already failed. Stencil deals with life drawing principles, like line, value, shape, and and you can argue with me on this one, expressiveness. In terms of line, if you do not know these lines: descriptive, expressive, dynamic, gestural, force, directional, curvilinear, animated, and especially contour, read up before you stencil.

As for value, it will fall under shape but value is a 2d and 3d property so that is important as well.

3. Blades: You are going to use multiple blades for different lines, shapes, or for detail. Buy a lot of blades. I suggest 11ss blades, 16, and the miniature box cutter size (big ones will slice off more than you want). When we cut, we are not going to cut like a pencil, cut with your wrist. Your shapes will be blocky and that ruins the image.

4. Spray Paint: The three that I use are these. If you plan on doing test sprays I suggest going to Home Depot and buying the dollar cans. Next is the more expensive stuff, available there and if you must, Michaels. Lastly, the king of sprays, Montana. Those run 7 bucks (5 if you are me ) to ten a can so if you must get something decent go with Montana. They reek though so take that into consideration.

5. Now draw it and figure out which colors you are going to want to keep. If you want, keep the darker values, (7,8,9). I suggest this method so you can train yourself to target the dark shapes that are going to make your stencil look awesome.

Ok now lets move on to step 6!