Tutorial 5: Stencil Cutting & Paper Cutting

Due to a bad case of flu last week, I wasn’t able to attend the weekly tutorials ): Hence I did the stencil cutting and paper cutting exercise on my own free time.

These were the 3 images I used for the exercise:

Image Reference: Coppens, P. V for Vendetta. Retrieved from: http://philipcoppens.com/vforvendetta.html

Image Reference: Barn Swallow. Retrieved from: http://www.pbase.com/smacomber/image/149499154

Image Reference: Pinterest. Retrieved from: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/0e/4b/4a/0e4b4a4e81af8eb880e8e444da6718a6--whale-illustration-whale-art.jpg

Stencil Cutting

First, I tried to dial up the images to a higher contrast. Looking back, I should have exaggerated the effect further, because when I printed it out the contours weren’t as distinct as I thought.

Tracing of the Guy Fawkes mask

With areas shaded in

I traced the outlines of the Guy Fawkes mask using a tracing paper. Instead of focusing on the lines/outlines as we had did in the line drawing workshop, I tried to focus on the shapes formed by the lines instead. This was a technique distinct from the line drawing tutorial. Next, I transferred the tracing onto white paper by going over the tracing again. Then, I shaded in the areas that I was supposed to extract, and proceeded to cut them out using a pen knife. After obtaining the stencil cutting, I sprayed it with orange paint to obtain my stencil (I wasn’t able to get my first choice of black spray paint, so this will do). This was the final result:

Surprisingly, because of orange colour, the Guy Fawkes mask, originally a symbol of rebellion and anti-government sentiment, has been ripped of its seriousness and somewhat creepy tension. The orange colour lends it liveliness and vibrancy, as well as a pop-art esque stylisation. Its surprising how abstracting certain shapes, and changing the colour of it can change the overall atmosphere of the image.

Strangely, doesn’t he remind you of Colonel Sanders from KFC too?

Image Reference: Wikipedia (2017). Colonel Sanders. Retrieved from: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/bf/KFC_logo.svg/1024px-KFC_logo.svg.png

I repeated the same steps for the second image of the swallow. This was the final result:

Even though the same method and same colour was applied to the second image, it produced a completely different effect. The originally plain image of the swallow, suspended in mid-flight, now had a grandiose and uplifting effect due to the effect of the orange spray paint. This is perhaps something I can revisit in the colour theory segment of the module. It reminded me of the Mockingjay symbol in the famous book and movie series The Hunger Games, probably as a result of the main details of the picture being removed resulting in the swallow being an unidentifiable species of bird.

Behind the Scenes

The used stencils. Frankly speaking I might like the used stencils fashioned as a coloured papercut more than the sprayed images itself. The spray paint had produced an unintended watercolour effect.

Paper Cutting

Having been spurred by the success of my stencils, I decided to challenge myself with a more intricate papercut which was a huge mistake, given that I don’t have a proper craft knife.

The bridges, being too thin and delicate for a normal penknife, broke under pressure. 

I then superimposed it on a black background.

Now the whale looks rather lonely ):

Takeaways

To be honest this was my least favourite tutorial exercise thus far – because paper cutting is really a technique that requires a huge amount of patience and dexterity that sadly I’m unable to reach yet, but hopefully will be able to with further practice. One of my other learning points from this exercise was surprisingly due to a mistake I made. When spray painting the Guy Fawkes mask, I had forgotten that the eyebrows were not joined by a bridge to the rest of the stencil. As a result, when I applied the spray paint, the paper eyebrows were moved by the pressure of the paint resulting in a faded stencil. This reminded me of the stark differences in techniques between digital and traditional art, being non-transferrable a times. Having been accustomed to more digital sources, I had forgotten to check on the computer, by visualising whether the image could be abstracted into shapes for easy stencilling before I printed and traced the image out, resulting in the isolated eyebrow. And secondly, forgetting that the stencil might move under pressure (because it doesn’t when you do it on the computer!)

I’ve also been given feedback that I could have explored more on the relationship or distinction between traditional and digital mediums, which was a very valid and constructive critique since it wasn’t a topic that I pondered much on, yet is very much important and pervasiveness given the rise of digital art today.

This is a retrospective reflection for the previous tutorials, but I feel that traditional art, being more tactile, encourages us to experiment more. For instance, on the computer we position our elements using an additional conduit which is the mouse, but of course nothing beats rearranging the elements directly yourself in front of you using your bare hands. As experimentation is crucial to the process of learning and self-discovery in visual communication, I think in this way using a traditional medium could be more fruitful.

(I’m still labelling this post as Week 7 even though it was done in Week 8, because that’s the original sequence for it)