Edgar Allen Poe painted stencil how-to (sort of how-to lol)

Continuing with the Raven theme I decided to do Mr. Poe himself. But how? Since I'm not that great at drawing I scoured the internet and came across this beauty.


by iamwickedstupid

I cut out the stencil on posterboard (since I had it laying around) with an X-Acto knife starting at his eyes. While cutting it I made sure I had a self-healing mat so I don't cut through anything I didn't want to. If you don't have a self-healing mat then a thick piece of corrugated cardboard will suffice (you can get it for free from the grocery store!). Make sure you turn the piece as you need it.   Here's the stencil...

The only point of caution is to watch out for thin spots, especially if you use paper-y type stuff for the stencil.


You can reinforce the thin spots with tape.

 Just make sure you slide the stencil around horizontally and don't hold it vertically if you have thin spots in your stencil as it will cause it to tear.

Now that I had it all positioned and taped in place I whipped out my fabric paint and fabric brush (don't use brushes for regualr art as they are too weak. Fabric brushes are stiff and deliver the paint to the fabric a lot better. (If you don't have a fabric brush, then you can use a sponge brush, or even a make-up sponge.) I used Polymark Bright Red Shiny dimensional fabric paint.  I started dobbing the paint around the edges of the stencil.

Once you have the paint down around the edges of the stencil you can lift it off the fabric.

And fill in the rest. If you think you're too sloppy then you can leave the stencil on, but make sure you lift it off as soon as you're done!

Finished product!

Quoth the Raven...(Poetic stencil how-to)

I was having a time deciding what the heck to do next.  I came around to my favorite poem, "The Raven." But how can I apply that to a t-shirt? Something came to me about words in a stencil. Alas another use for the fabulous Tee Juice fine line pen!
I found a basic outline of a raven and printed it out on regular paper. I cut out the raven shape and decided where to put it. I decided on back left upper shoulder area with the bird facing towards the center of my body. I copied the part of the poem where the raven shows up making sure I overlapped the edges of the stencil like so.

I made sure I continued the wording even through the legs so it didn't look like I jumped around.

And here's what it looked like after I lifted the stencil...


Since I overlapped the edges it kept the shape of the stencil better than just starting at the edge.



close up

So if you have a favorite poem, why not copy it onto your own t-shirt?