Koi Part 1

In the workshop Creative Jumpstart that I am doing, yesterday's lesson involved acrylic spray paint, which is (no I'm not kidding) an art supply that I didn't own (yes, I got some). The video by Michelle Ward made it look like so much fun, I thought a little spray paint could be fun to own.  It was actually on sale at Michaels; I think they are downsizing since only the weird colors were on sale. I got a few but I haven't used them yet, since, in an odd turn of events, it is raining making my well ventilated (back yard) work area soggy.

In the meantime, I decided to try the activity with Dylusions sprays.  I cut fish stencils out of printer paper and then sprayed them with a waterproof sealant (since I was pretty sure I'd be drowning them in ink).  Some of my prints worked well, without much leakage under the stencil, but I like the bright colors you get by soaking the paper so I chose this one, which was not an excellent print. After writing on it with Permapaque gold markers, they look pretty fishy again though.

I decided that I loved these fish shapes, and before calling it a night, I scanned them into illustrator and cut them out of transparency plastic. So I have reusable fish stencils and masks ready to go when I get to try my sprays. Here's a digital image showing my shapes. This image is a lot closer to the look of Michelle Ward's project from the workshop. I like it and am looking forward to trying the spray.

Hand cutting and then scanning in the shapes is a new process for me. It was quick and easy in Illustrator. I'll definitely be doing that again.  Stay tuned for my adventures in acrylic spray paint. Thanks for looking!