Try Lettering Art With Stencils In 2022

When it comes to art and craft there are literally endless options on the things you can create. There are just as many techniques that you can apply to achieve a certain effect you might be looking for.

So one of these days you find a project to make art that includes patterns on a large wall or you need to make a batch of 100 greeting cards in the matter of a day then what do you do to quicken the process? You do need something that can help you replicate the same design on all the greeting cards or find a way to repeat a pattern over the wall rather than drawing everything from scratch. 

Introducing stenciling for recreating one pattern as many times as you may like. At ThunderBolt Paper, we are more than just the lovely paper products but also about educating our readers about everything you can do with paper. Where we are trying to tell you the basics and different types of stenciling as follows. 

What is stenciling?

You may already know that stenciling is a way to use a stencil to replicate a design or pattern over and over again. Made out of cutting a pattern or design through a metal fabric or plastic, a stencil helps in replicating the design by applying the paint or color through the holes of the stencil. 

Anytime that you are required to make a design repeatedly without many mistakes you can use a stencil of the design and paint through the holes of the stencil to get a perfect replication of the design each time. 

How to use stencils?

You begin with first placing the stencil over a smooth surface and fixing it with a repositioning tape which can be removed later. It's important for this purpose to have the design from the stencil to be smooth for the color or paint; it might bleed through the stencil without making a proper design imprint. 

Stencils are usually made from smoothed metal plastic or paper to make a design over another smooth surface such as thick cardstock paper. One of the things that most crafters working with stenciling tell you to do is to make sure that you use as little color as possible while stenciling. Make sure you dab or wipe the excess color off the brush or the roller. Try starting with color and build up as you go until you achieve the correct color. 

What are the types of stencils?

Stenciled Letters

 This is probably the most common type of stenciling that you could have seen while growing up. All of the alphabets are made into one plastic stencil in one font and lower or upper case. 

Especially for a poster or project that needs writing, a stencil ensures the same size and font of letter throughout the project as compared to lettering art unless of course, you are an expert calligrapher.

Stamp Stenciling

If you already don't know what stamping is it's another method of recreating similar patterns or designs repeatedly. You take the stamp, dip it in the paint and then press it over the paper or fabric and you have an impression of the stamp. 

When you use a stencil and stamp through the stencil you get a mixed pattern from the stencil and the stamp together. 

Reverse Stenciling 

Usually you place a stencil over the fabric or metal or any surface that you want and then paint over the stencil, and then pick up the stencil to reveal the impression of the design underneath. 

While reverse stamping you paint your stencil, place your paper or fabric that you need on top of the stencil and then press for a slightly different design. This can be done to make a similar but slightly different result of the same design.

Stenciling with Spray Ink

Begin with fixing the stencil over the desired surface for stencil impression. Then free the paint over the stencil to create a design below. You may have tried spray painting with a toothbrush at home to spray over the stencil.

You might have to be careful about the excess color sitting on top of the stencil and wipe it off. Or you can pick up the stencil and lay it over another paper to get a sort of reverse design of the stencil opposed to the one you made earlier. 

Any craft can be a little difficult at first but if you begin with the right tools and take one step at a time, you could make beautiful art. Stenciling is just as simple as any new paper craft, make sure to remember the basic tips. We would love to hear about your experience with paper craft in the comments below or any of our social media handles. Have you ever tried stenciling?