Stenciling a Three Panel Screen

In order to hide the backs of a num­ber of mon­i­tors and com­put­ers in Jim’s office we put up a cheap three panel screen.

It’s very bor­ing thing. But… the pan­els are white “can­vas” and that means they don’t have to stay bor­ing. So I finally found a sten­cil that I wanted to use in a new book “Sten­cil Me In”

The birds on the right — crows! The orig­i­nal is only 8 inches tall and the screens are 60 inches — fill­ing them up with crows would be very busy. So… time to make the lit­tle crows into big crows. I have a scan­ner and Pho­to­shop and a printer, and a lot of tape. And they are — 18 inches tall now.

Next to make a sten­cil. I used an old manila file folder. (You can still see the label if you look closely.) By tap­ing the enlarged sten­cil pat­tern over the top and cut­ting very care­fully with an exacto knife — two fresh blades — I ended up with a decent stencil.

Then I got out the lin­seed oil and rubbed it into the paper. It takes along time to cover the folder evenly. Not too much (that would be gloopy) and not too lit­tle (that would be splotchy.) It took 24 hours for the sten­cil to dry enough that it wouldn’t bleed oil on the fabric.

Next up — the actual apply­ing of paint!

Tagged as: screen, stencil