The art of producing a multilayered stencil is one which can take a very lengthy amount of time. The vast majority of which is the time spent of cutting. This journal covers the production of the print outs which are then cut out and placed to be painted. I myself do use a computer to create the various layers. There is a great debate between many artists over whether the use of the computer takes a lot out of the creative process. I would argue in favour of that if one is simply using a photoshop filter to create a stencil. The method I will be outlining below is pretty much what that filter does; But it still leaves a lot of the decision process to the artist themselves. The program I use is gimp which is a piece of freeware which is fairly easy to use and importantly... Free
So today we will turn the picture on the left to that on the right;
This is a pretty straight forward process with relative few 'types' of steps. But there are quite a few repetitions, first piece of advice; Make your self comfortable and get a nice cup of tea on the brew before you start (background noise helps as well).
The first few steps are really easy and involve just a few clicks of the mouse. Now the amount of layers we want to create for this stencil are four and therefore we want to limit the amount of colours in the image to 4. Using the mode menu shown below we first change the colour to greyscale (makes it easier for the program to do the next step). Next we want to index the amount colours within the image by changing it to an 'indexed' image, using the settings shown below. This then produces and image similar to the one on the right (I've added pencil marks in each of the 4 colours down the side for ease in the next set of steps and to clarify).
Now for the next few stages we need to use only three tools colour select tool, magic wand tool and the fill tool. Each one of these needs to be set on one setting only for the entirety of the creation process. Below on the left is a screen capture of the top of the tools tab, showing from left to right sqaure select, circle select, lasso select, magic wand select and colour select tool. The middle image shows the various settings for the select tools. For both the colour and wand select you require a threshold setting of 0. The threshold setting is how far away from the colour you are selecting it is acceptable for it to select as well. In an indexed image you want a threshold of 0, as you may have two colours very similar but you only want to select the one and not the other. The 'Mode' part of the settings (where the little pink icons are), determines how the selection is used; From left to right new selection, add to selection, subtract from selection, new selection from the over lap of original selection and new selection. So wand we want on the subtract setting and the colour select on the add selection setting. For the fill tool, shown in the image to the right, we need only change the 'affected area' setting to 'Fill whole selection'.
This is a pretty straight forward process with relative few 'types' of steps. But there are quite a few repetitions, first piece of advice; Make your self comfortable and get a nice cup of tea on the brew before you start (background noise helps as well).
The first few steps are really easy and involve just a few clicks of the mouse. Now the amount of layers we want to create for this stencil are four and therefore we want to limit the amount of colours in the image to 4. Using the mode menu shown below we first change the colour to greyscale (makes it easier for the program to do the next step). Next we want to index the amount colours within the image by changing it to an 'indexed' image, using the settings shown below. This then produces and image similar to the one on the right (I've added pencil marks in each of the 4 colours down the side for ease in the next set of steps and to clarify).
Now for the next few stages we need to use only three tools colour select tool, magic wand tool and the fill tool. Each one of these needs to be set on one setting only for the entirety of the creation process. Below on the left is a screen capture of the top of the tools tab, showing from left to right sqaure select, circle select, lasso select, magic wand select and colour select tool. The middle image shows the various settings for the select tools. For both the colour and wand select you require a threshold setting of 0. The threshold setting is how far away from the colour you are selecting it is acceptable for it to select as well. In an indexed image you want a threshold of 0, as you may have two colours very similar but you only want to select the one and not the other. The 'Mode' part of the settings (where the little pink icons are), determines how the selection is used; From left to right new selection, add to selection, subtract from selection, new selection from the over lap of original selection and new selection. So wand we want on the subtract setting and the colour select on the add selection setting. For the fill tool, shown in the image to the right, we need only change the 'affected area' setting to 'Fill whole selection'.
So, now we are ready to begin. The first part of artistic process is selecting which colour to make your top layer and which your bottom layer. For this image the procession of layers is easy to select, namely from light to dark (light at the base with dark at the top most layer). A good general rule of thumb is to go from the colour with the least presence to the colour with the most (top to bottom). Second piece of advice keep track of which layer is which, it will save a lot of time and help avoid mistakes later down the line. ** So using the colour select we select the colour for the top layer, now to the next part of artistic input. Using the wand tool, we want to deselect all the parts of that layer we want to keep. Finally ending up with a selection like the image on the left below. The idea behind this is to 'clean up' the edges of the colours and to remove unwanted details (thus making it increasingly easier to cut out the final product layers). Once this has been finished set the colour of the next layer down with the colour select tool. Now because you have the colour tool set to add to the selection all the unwanted parts of the previous colour are now included in the selection (like the image below).
Using the fill tool with the colour set to the current layers colour you can fill in to turn the entire selection to that colour. Now again using the wand tool to deselect, colour tool to select and the fill tool to fill the selection work your way down the layers. This will eventually produce an image like the one on the left. Which looking at doesn't look that great, but here is the beauty of this process...We repeat the same steps from ** but starting from the base layer to the top. This then eliminates all the 'unwanted' parts of the image colour by colour. You now have an image converted to a stencil base. Congratulations after all that work you have now done what it takes photoshop mere seconds to do. The advantage of this is that you have processed the image and not a piece of software, you've merely used the software as a tool
Now for the final stretch, turning that stencil image into the layers for printing. First of all de-select everything ctrl+shift+a. Next we want to add a transparent layer to the image, Layer > Transparancey > Add alpha channel (This is so that when removing the colours to leave just an outline you don't end up with the background colour getting in the way). Now we want to access the selection editor menu which can be found under the selection drop down menu (image below left). Once you have that up you need to use the colour selection tool and select the top layer. ++ Use the del button to clear the selection, ctrl+I to invert the selection and clear again with del. This leaves a clear image with only the dotted flashing line to denote you have an area selected. Then use the bottom right icon on the selection editor to bring up the stroke selection function menu (image below right), change the default width to 1 and press stroke (make sure the colour selected is black, makes it easier to see when printing). Save as a separate file using file > save as (save as a png file as jpg doesn't support transparencies). Now simply undo using ctrl+z to ++. We now use the colour select tool to add the second layer to the first in the section and repeat, keep going until all the layers have been singled out, outlined and saved.
Using the fill tool with the colour set to the current layers colour you can fill in to turn the entire selection to that colour. Now again using the wand tool to deselect, colour tool to select and the fill tool to fill the selection work your way down the layers. This will eventually produce an image like the one on the left. Which looking at doesn't look that great, but here is the beauty of this process...We repeat the same steps from ** but starting from the base layer to the top. This then eliminates all the 'unwanted' parts of the image colour by colour. You now have an image converted to a stencil base. Congratulations after all that work you have now done what it takes photoshop mere seconds to do. The advantage of this is that you have processed the image and not a piece of software, you've merely used the software as a tool
Now for the final stretch, turning that stencil image into the layers for printing. First of all de-select everything ctrl+shift+a. Next we want to add a transparent layer to the image, Layer > Transparancey > Add alpha channel (This is so that when removing the colours to leave just an outline you don't end up with the background colour getting in the way). Now we want to access the selection editor menu which can be found under the selection drop down menu (image below left). Once you have that up you need to use the colour selection tool and select the top layer. ++ Use the del button to clear the selection, ctrl+I to invert the selection and clear again with del. This leaves a clear image with only the dotted flashing line to denote you have an area selected. Then use the bottom right icon on the selection editor to bring up the stroke selection function menu (image below right), change the default width to 1 and press stroke (make sure the colour selected is black, makes it easier to see when printing). Save as a separate file using file > save as (save as a png file as jpg doesn't support transparencies). Now simply undo using ctrl+z to ++. We now use the colour select tool to add the second layer to the first in the section and repeat, keep going until all the layers have been singled out, outlined and saved.
There you have it. A bunch of files all containing the separate layers to print and cut out. Happy cutting remember to be safe and take your time, after all this work it would be a shame to ruin it by cutting incorrectly. This process can be used for a multi-layered stencil of any number of layers and any degree of intricacy. I myself have done it once for a stencil with 20+ layers and one of these days I will actually get around to printing, cutting and painting it. Final thing to add here, save work in progress regularly (nothing worse than having to repeat yourself).
I hope this has been of help to people and as always don't hesitate to drop me a note or comment with any questions.
I hope this has been of help to people and as always don't hesitate to drop me a note or comment with any questions.
