Stencils

 I have a new crop of silkscreen students at Fleisher- this time in the 14-18 age group. With only 8 kids, it's really a pleasure working with a more mature group. We kicked off the semester learning about the roots of silkscreen in paper stenciling.

 Asked to combine a word and image that related to nature, the students designed a freezer paper stencil, being careful to include enough "bridges" between shapes. Then they came up with a second simpler shape and cut it out of contact paper for an adhesive stencil on the screens.

 Last week we printed the large simple background shapes using the adhesive stencils on the screen. This week we stenciled our key image on top with sponges, which allowed for more specific color placement than regular screenprint would have allowed in one layer.

 Once our paper prints were complete we headed out to the "free wall" in the parking lot and stenciled our key images in a random arrangement. The wall has been totally blank for a few months, so it was pretty cool to activate the space with our nature-themed prints.

Having put our art out in the urban environment, next week we'll go looking for image from the urban environment to put back into our art.