Leonardo’s Apprentice- the world of Sarah Gladman

This week’s tip is all about using your lettering templates again – but this time I want you to use a few at a time and we are going to create our own “backdrop” for our photos. We are going to layer text/ words in all different fonts using your templates and acrylic paint.

You Need:

1 sheet plain cardstock
1 tub of water
3 colours of acrylic paint
1 stubby/ stencilling brush
2 or three empty lettering stencils             

Step ONE:

Place your LARGEST lettering template on your cardstock and figure out which word you are going to form. To help you do this in a straight line, you may wish to draw a VERY fine pencil line to follow (and rub out later).
Put your paintbrush in the paint and dab in the letter using an ALMOST DRY BRUSH. Keep doing this for each letter – you may need to wipe the back of the template to get any excess paint off.

Step Two:

Repeat Step One until you have put a few larger words on the page.
Then, using another SMALLER stencil (and a different font), apply paint of a DIFFERENT COLOUR in your lettering stencil. You need to group the letters and words together for it to be effective. You may also wish to deliberately overlap the words. Don’t worry, the paint dries very quickly unless you have put in on with a trowel.

Step Three:

Repeat Step Two until you have create a few words over the page.

Then, using the last and smallest template repeat the stencilling effect, this time deliberately overlapping the previous words.

If you look at my example, you will see that I have chosen a deep brown as the base colour, then turquoise as the medium colour and then bright white on top as the last colour. Even though the white is the smallest bunch of letters, they still stand out pretty well, don’t they?

I have also added another layer of Hand written words in black script over the top of the other words for additional effect.

And here is my sample for you to see how to use this sheet of paper as a “backdrop” to your LO theme:

So there you go – simple, but very very effective!

Have fun making a mess and enjoy!

Sares xx