Analog Printmaking: Experimental Stencil Printing for Everyone

1. Introduction: I love printmaking has a very special static surface of the paper, texture of the ink, and the combination of lines and planes create a unique world. At the same time, some printing techniques are very easy to implement in your artwork. And the stencil printing is one of them. Hello, my name's Sarah CSCA and I'm an illustrator, designer and art teacher from rolling my own creative process, I like to experiment with different materials, especially with printing techniques like liner card, etching or stencil printing. First started to work with printmaking about ten years ago. I fell in love with its aesthetics. Since then, I have worked with almost all kinds of printmaking techniques and created serious books and postcards. I find that printmaking can be really expressive with simple steps, you can create amazing projects. In this class, we will take a look at stencil printing. At first, we will talk about fury of printmaking and what stencil printing is. I will show you what materials do you need to start and experiment with this technique. If you haven't worked much with printmaking before, this class is for you. Stencil printing can be used by any visual artists, as well as illustrators, graphic designers who just want to add some analog aesthetics to their word. You can use it to illustrate books or magazines. You can also create beautiful Bring series or your own sets of postcards or posters. Without using digital brings you get all will work with analog materials. But at the end of the class, I will show you how to edit your work or illustration in Photoshop so that you can publish it on your social media or on your website. At the end of the class, you will have everything to continue your own work with stencil printing. So let us begin our journey. 2. Project: In this class, we will work together on a project. It is fascinating and important to experiment with tensile green tick if you want to learn it. But I also want you to have a finished project at the end of the class. So it will be easier for you to draw some conclusions and understand the whole potential of this technique. The first thing I suggest you do is to find yourself a little helper. This can be a flower and vegetable or just simple objects that you like. Look for things with an interesting shape but not too much detail. Your favorite coffee cup or a light bulb, a reddish or maybe a flower. In the next lessons, this little helper will help us to experiment and create an amazing project. First, we will look at the theory of printmaking and stencil printing. Then together with our helpers, we will sketch some interesting shapes and turn them step-by-step into our prints. At the end of the class, we will create a poster that you can reproduce as often as you like. We will also add typography to our poster. And I will show you how to edit your work so you can use it on social media or for your website. I'm really excited to begin with this class. So just join me in the next lesson. 3. Theory: Let us take a look at theory at first so we can understand better what kind of visual art are we doing? Printmaking is different from many other art forms. Here you can create both unique artwork or many copies, or better to say, impressions of an illustration or picture. In this lesson, I will give you some basic information about what printmaking is. It can be useful not only for this class, but also if you want to try any other printmaking techniques later. What is the stencil printing technique? To answer this question, we have to look at printmaking in general at first, we can categorize all branding techniques into traditional and digital printmaking. But today, we'll add digital printing out. And we'll talk only about traditional versions of printmaking. Printmaking is a fine art technique where images are created by transferring ink from a matrix to a sheet of paper or other material. Some printing techniques can be used to print on metal, wood, glass, or even fabric, for example, stencil technique. All common traditional printing techniques can be divided again into four categories that are relief, intaglio, planet graphic printing, and stencil printing. Let's begin with relief. Relief is when your design is carved in the metrics and you apply ink only on higher planes in the cart spots is no ink. The paper will remain white on this spots. You don't always need a printing press for this techniques. Examples of these techniques are woodcut, line, a card, rubber stamp, or even letterpress. Woodcut can have a visible structure and work with big planes. But small details are also possible because wood is pretty stable. Liner cut material is a bit softer and not that stable as good. So you have to be careful with thin lines. It can be monochrome or printed in many colors. Intaglio is when your design is also curved or etched into the matrix. But the ink will be forced into these cavities under high pressure in the printing press, ink will be absorbed by the paper. So you get to see all the ink from the metrics on the paper. You always need to printing press for these techniques. Intaglio techniques are etching, aquatint, or engraving. Etching allows to work with tiny lines and smallest details like dots or grain. It looks like dark and find pencil. But it's not so good to create planes. You work mostly with lines and shading. With aquatint. It is possible to create planes, even indifferent tones. Planet graphic printing is when the surface of the matrix remains whole and you apply the ink only where you need it for your design. So you don't cut or carve anything. Examples for this category would be lithography or monitor typing. Lithography is one of the first techniques used to create posters. It can be very picturesque and gifts many possibilities to work with color and line. Monitor typing is much softer and can be easily done without special equipment. You call it stencil printing. Ink is pressed on paper through a specially prepared screen or just gaps with your design in the surface of the matrix. The most known example would be screen printing. You might have already heard of it. Silkscreen is technically pretty complex, but allows to bring in very different styles. This is what we are going to do in this class, stencil printing. We are going to work with the simple type of it where you don't need any special equipment. Stencil printing can be very experimental, fun, easy, but also expressive. The main idea is to cut a design in some stable material. It can be cardboard, thick paper, or plastic. We will talk about more in the next lessons. Through the holes you're cut out. You can apply into the paper. By preparing a metrics, it is important to cut so that your standard soul doesn't fall apart and all details remain in their places. Every part of your design is somehow connected. So what is so special about stencil printing? I think some of the amazing things about stencil printing are the following. While you work with stencil printing, your focus on creating interesting shapes and silhouettes. So your illustration looks very exciting. You can create beautiful gradients in tones and colors. You can create unusual textures and patterns. You can also mix layers and colors. You don't need a printing press or expensive tools to work with it. And it can be easily digitalized and edited for digital work. We learned that printing technique is a traditional printmaking where you don't need a printing press and apply the into the paper through a matrix with your design. In the next lesson, let us take a look at the materials we need for the practical part of the class. See you there. 4. Materials: In this lesson, I will tell you what materials do you need for the practical part of our class? A list of all the materials. You will also find in the PDF in the class description. The main thing we need is, of course, the paper on which we are going to print. For the beginning, it will be enough to use regular white paper or even office paper. I recommend using pretty smooth and textured paper. Of course, you can always experiment with all kinds of materials, but even a plain paper like this is enough for the beginning. It is even easier to make mistakes on it. It isn't special or expensive. A4 size of the paper will be enough for us closer to the end of the class. When we work on the poster, we may also need a format, a three. So we need, of course, the paper that we will use to cut out our stencil. And normal paper is also enough for this purpose, but it is better to use something a bit thicker. The color is not important. Of course, I just liked this juicy red. Thicker paper or cardboard that is easy to cut, is very good. It can be about 200 grams per square meter. You can see that you can folded easily. Maybe you have something at home or you can buy such paper at any school supplies store. Such a thin plastic works. Also very well. It's also easy to fold or cut. Of course, you can take some other thick and stable material that cuts well and doesn't tear. To easily solve that, you can work with even small details. Now we need something to apply ink to the paper through our stencil. For this purpose, as simple sponge will be good. We only need the soft middle part. We don't need the black hard part or the part. We can just cut them off and keep just the soft ones. I use pieces of old foam rubber. I hope I can call it like this. They are great. I cut this material into smaller pieces, one for each color I used. It is necessary to make sure the colors don't mix where they don't need to and don't create dirt on the artwork. We will also need something to hold our paper and pencil together. I suggest painter's tape or any tape that doesn't read the paper. Now, let's see what can we use to cut our stencil out? For this purpose, I like to use a utility knife like this one. It's blades are removable and easily to break off and so it always stays sharp, which is needed to be sharp enough to cut cardboard or plastic so it doesn't tear this tensile. You can also use a scalpel. It may look different, but any sharp scalpel and we will do it. And you might also need small scissors to cut something small or to cut something off. But please be careful when using sharp objects. And of course we need the main ingredient of our work, which is the ink we are going to print with. Basically any printing ink will be okay. Even the office think it will probably be a little pale, but it is enough to start with stencil printing. You can try different inks. Some will have more saturation and some a little bit less, but we will definitely need black color. And take of course, also other colors of your choice. I have, for example, blue, yellow, and reddish pink. But it doesn't really matter what colors you choose. I suggest you use a couple of different colors to experiment with them. And of course, for every artist, two things are very important. And pencil and an eraser to sketch out ideas and correct them a little bit if necessary. So this is the set of all materials we need for our next lessons. So see you there. 5. Sketching the Object: In this lesson, we will find a helper. This will be an object that will help us to work on our project in this class and experiment with the new technique we want to explore. There are plenty of places to find such a helper. You can go out to a park or garden. You can go into a supermarket and look around at the shelves of vegetables. But I suggest that we start by just looking around. We are always surrounded by a lot of amazing things. They are here for a reason. We place them here by ourselves. Now we don't need to look for anything too complicated because for our task this object must be simple enough, but with a recognizable shape. For example, it could be your favorite cup. Pay attention to it's shape. How can you exaggerate some of its details or maybe add something? It's important to create an interesting silhouette. It's not so important what patterns are painted on it? More important is the shape of the cup or its handle. Another example is a light bulb. They can be very different in silhouette. You can also use the part inside it for your design. You can take any kind of vegetables or fruits. Pay attention to the ones that have some interesting shapes. For example, this lemon has these endings which make it very recognizable. Apple or plum can become just a circle when you simplify it. But maybe you will find some very unusual labels. You could take a flower as a helper. For example, I love dried flowers, so I might find something among them, but maybe you just have some fresh flowers at home or you can find some from around the house. Sometimes simple flower has an interesting texture that you can experiment with two. Now, let's try to sketch from a few different items to see which one we want to use next for our work. For sketches, all you need is regular office paper, a pencil, and an eraser. You can make sketches of your objects quite simple and Ralph, keep them pretty small. On one sheet of paper is okay. We are just looking for ideas and shapes. Look at the objects from different angles and twist them around. Does it make sense to show the objects from a certain perspective or not? Make sure the shape remains recognizable. Ask yourself into what simple forms can you decompose an object? Could it be a circle or a square or triangle? Lives or shadows are not necessary for this work. But you can use some interesting details in this period to get a better idea of what will be printed and what one, you can just paint over the parts of the object that should stay. We need to simplify our helper quite a bit, leaving only what we need. Our object is a reference, an example. We don't need an exact picture, but rather a vivid character. So something can even be exaggerated or edit, or you can find even something suitable on the Internet and edit to the sketch. For example, I didn't like the part inside my bulb, and I found another one. Although I kept this you read from my bulb. Of course, we can also look online to find our helper. In this case, I recommend you to find high-quality images, good resolution. So it's easier to understand the shape. Dante crazy illustrations use only photos. Find something you like, and try to simplify the form. Don't forget that you shouldn't make too fine details. Otherwise, it can be very difficult to cut them out. So we've done a few sketches. You can do more and look for different options. Don't be afraid of this process. It's a very important part of the work. I think I can already see that I would like to work with a light bulb. I like the silhouette and the simplicity of the shape. I like the part inside the one that close. There's a lot of room for stylization and experimentation. Okay, Now, when we found our little helpers, we can prepare our sketch for transferring to this tensile. But to do this, we will have to remember the goal of our journey, the poster. Let's talk about it in the next lesson. 6. Sketching the Poster: In this lesson, we're going to take some time and plan something for the future. We will decide what our poster will look like. First of all, we will think about its composition to make it easier for us to decide on the size of our stencil. Later, we need to understand how our design will eventually be pictured in the format. To do this, I suggest that you also make small sketches on a simple sheet of office paper. For our final poster, we will be guided by the A3 format. Of course, you can choose your format, stay at a four or take square or something completely different and create a composition depending on that. However, I will use the A3 format and we'll now draw rectangles with nearly the same proportions. Now I basically want to figure out what exactly I want to have on my poster. What I want to say with it, I have my helper object. But what can I do with it? I began to look for inspiration in the object itself. The light bulb is often associated with an idea or creativity. You know, you often see characters with a light bulb over their heads. It seemed to me that showing light bulb as a symbol of an idea is a good topic for a poster. So I thought that I would choose a phrase and combine these words. My image, which I would print with the stencil later when we digitalize our work, we can add a font to our image. You don't need any special knowledge to do this. I'll show you how easy this works in Photoshop. So I took a simple phrase about ideas. It calls everything, begins with an idea. This is the phrase I will use in my poster. Now I have to decide how to combine this phrase and the other elements on the paper. You see that I'm drawing all the elements in a very schematic way. We need to see how the masses are placed in the format. Now, I'm trying different arrangements of the elements on the paper. I will use the phrase as a header and quiet classically place it at the top in the center. I can also put my illustrative element in the center, but most likely I want to show different variations of it on the poster. Let's look for more options for the composition. You can have a single word or a longer phrase. If you like. You can divide it up and place the parts in different places on the paper. For example, one part at the top and another one at the bottom. For example, you took a fruit as a helper. You could even just write its name on the top of the poster and show how different that fruit can be with the help of stencil printing. I like the rhythm that you get in the last version of the sketches. You can of course do more sketches, or maybe you can find the right ones sooner than ID. I will choose the last two options. They differ only in the arrangements of the font, and I liked the rhythm of the objects in the sketch. You can also experiment with it more in Photoshop later. So your task now is to understand what you want to show on this poster and how you want to arrange all the components. Look at your helper. It will probably give you some ideas to, as my light bulb did. Maybe you took some flowers and the statement two, it will be gentle and lyrical, or it could be about the power of the flower growing through the asphalt. Look for something in your helper that will give you ideas. In the next lesson, we will transfer the sketch of our object to a stencil. I look forward to seeing you there. 7. Preparing the Stencil: In this lesson, I'm going to transfer our sketch this tensile. First, we need to decide on the size of this tensile. That's why in the last lesson, we already thought about the composition of the whole poster. Now it is clear whether we need a large or small stencil. You should be guided by the poster size you choose. I'm going to go with A3 size. I plan to play several images of the same object in this format. I have found that my object will fit here nine times. Of course, you can also work with larger stencil and arrange only three or even one. I highly encourage you to experiment. Feel free to try different compositions and format. This will help you develop your own vision. Not just follow me through the steps. Now, I'll take the paper from which alkyl out this tensile. The size I chose, is the size of the image itself. But the stencil needs to be a little bigger so that the paint does not run out the edges when we apply it so that we do not dirty or paper where it's not necessary to transfer the sketch on stencil paper. You can use carbon paper, all a light table or just the window. Make sure you leave enough margin. I left about two centimeter on each side. Also, it's best to tape all the sheets together so nothing slips while you work. At this point, it is still possible to specify some details that you do not quite like. Also make sure that the lines are not too thin. Thin lines aren't difficult to cut and then break easily, especially if the paper is not very thick. After the image is transferred, I have to figure out what to leave and what to cut out. Paint is then applied to the areas that are cut out. Everything that remains. I paint all her and what I do not paint over will be holes in my stencil. And this is what my plan looks like right now. All the dark thick lines will remain and to keep the center of the bulb from falling out. When I cut it out all around, I left so-called breach from it to the edges. This connections are typical when working with this tensile. So in this lesson, we have successfully transferred the sketch to the stencil paper. And now I await you in the next lesson where I will show you how to get out the stencil so that everything will be fine. 8. Cutting Out the Stencil: Hello again, friends. Now we can cut out our stencil. For simplicity sake, I cut off everything unnecessary and left a few centimeters of margin around the object itself. This way, the ink won't go beyond the borders of the stanza. I kept with a ruler, but of course, scissors will work as well. So what should you keep in mind when cutting out the stencil? Two things are important for us. Not to cut yourself and not to spoil the work. So it's very important that the knife or a scalpel and we use is really sharp and doesn't tear the paper. Also, it's always a good idea to hold our sheet of paper firmly with our freehand so it doesn't move. You can hold it at a comfortable angle, but it couldn't accidentally slip while you're working. Now, it's important that you slowly and without haste, follow the line that we've prepared. If necessary, you can turn the sheet of paper and fix it again with your free hand. You can see that you'll get a slit. You can make small cats. If you have thick paper or plastic, you shouldn't necessarily try to cut the sheet. The first time. It's better to draw the line with light pressure to three times. This is just safer. It's a knife goes deep into the material the stencil made here. If you make a wrong move, try not to cut in the direction of your body, finger or hand. Never hold your finger in front of the knife, even if it looks like you need to hold something better yet, turn the stencil around and cut in the other direction. It seems obvious, but it's easy to get lost in thought as you work. Plus, we often want to see the result as soon as possible and start rushing. This technique should help to avoid that. If the knife is sharp enough, there is no need to make a special effort. The thinner the paper, the easier it is to cut. However, such as tensile isn't durable. It can also quickly tier even during printing. Almost check if the paper is cut all the way through. If not, you don't need to pull on it. So you can damage the stencil again. That's enough to lift the piece a little bit and check where it's not cut through, then it's better to cut this piece. Again. Another way to work safely with the template is to cut all the lines in one direction first and then cut all the lines in the other direction. For example, I cut all the lines in the vertical direction first. Then I turn this tensile and the lines that were horizontal before are now perpendicular to me again, so it's easier to cut them. This is roughly what it looks like. When the pieces separate easily. Don't forget the breach points. So you don't accidentally cut them and don't throw away the big pieces you cut, we will still need them. So that's the stencil we have. And now we can confidently move onto printing. I remind you, while cutting, halt the sheet as you cut. Don't cut towards your fingers and cut out the pieces slowly and in detail. And I always see you in the next lesson. 9. Printing With One Color: Now we finally start experimenting with the ink. At first, we will work with only one color, black. We print the image we prepared on paper and see what happens. So I take ink and a piece of sponge. You can of course, rapid with something for example tape. Otherwise the ink will get on your fingers. You can find sponges with a handle in stores or attach them to the handle yourself. You can also work with disposable gloves. One, spare my fingers today. In fact, when I worked directly with my hands, I can better feel what am I doing? I fold a piece of sponge and take the install that the top layer of the sponge is soaked with it. Now we try several variations of our design on one sheet of paper. I can place three or four here. It depends on the size of yours tensile. Additionally, you can put a piece of paper next to you if you need to wipe your fingers. And of course, don't forget to fix the stencil on the sheet, so that doesn't move during the war. Now we lightly apply the ink through the stencil onto the paper. It's not necessary to wrap the ink into the paper, but rather to tap it. If you wrap the ink, it will look smeared. First we apply the ink evenly, other the entire stencil, try to achieve the same thickness everywhere. Let's take a look at our first print. My bulk looks good. I like it. Everything I prepared is clearly visible. You can see the silhouette. There are details and the characteristic parts inside. The first important step is done. Now we can experiment with different shades of gray. Let's move our stencil to a free area. Now I want to make the bottom of the bulb darker and the top lighter as if it were glowing. Do achieve this. I apply much more ink to the button. Then to the top. The closer I get to the top, the less ink I leave, creating a gradient. Even a simple gradient completely changes the effect and even the message. The first bulb is just the silhouette, and the second one already symbolizes the state. It's on, it's glowing. In this lesson, we worked with ink and created the first unique brand from our stencil. We also saw that even with small changes, you can create new effects. Think about how you can apply a gradient to your image and compare what comes out. Experiment more boldly. Don't stop at two images. Make as many as you want. And in the next lesson, we will work with color. I look forward to seeing you there. 10. Printing With Multiple Colors: In this lesson, I will live my bulb with other colors. Please think about how you can add color to your image. I will show you how to mix colors. But the best way to combine many colors and what to pay attention to while printing with multiple colors. As you can see, I have prepared several stencils made of different materials to show you how they work. For example, this stencil is made of a thicker cardboard. So I'm going to take a yellow color and do what I did in the last lesson to get started. If you are working with more than one color, I recommend starting with the lightest one. This inks don't overlap. They blend, they are pretty transparent. So if you end up adding a lighter color you want really see it. In general, I recommend always having a set of basic colors. Black, red, blue, and yellow. From these colors you can combine any other color. Let's take a look at how it works. So right now the light bulb is all yellow. Let us say I want to create a fairly realistic effect where the bottom of the bulb is black, not glowing because it's in shadow, but the bulb is glowing. Look at the mixed colors, how they blend together, and also the texture of the green creates a grain effect like an old film. Now, I want to show you the effect created when different colors are layered. Let us start again with the lightest color. Now I take this tensile and move it a little. However, it is better to let the paint dry or dry it with a hairdryer. Now, I add the red color. Remember to take this tensile and take and use punch to keep the colors clean. Now we can see how the colors mix. Yellow and red, make orange. To apply the next color, I take a plastic stencil and show you why it is a bit different. For example, after I apply a color, I can use a cloth to wipe away the rest of the ink and my stencil is clean and I don't spoil the work. Also such as tensile, last longer. Again, we see here the effect of mixing colors. Now blue plus yellow gives a green hue, and where all three colors are mixed, the color becomes darker and not very clean. I think this is the maximum number of colors that can be mixed. Otherwise, the color will not be so clear and May messy. I'm going to do a few more color variation is now just watch what I do and think about how you can apply mixing colors to your image. Now you know how colors are mixed and what to pay attention to. I've shown you how colors look when they are mixed and what happens when you create a gradient. Now experiment with your stencil and look for interesting color options. And I will see you in the next lesson. 11. Printing With Overlay: In this lesson, I will show you how to work with different overlays. There are so many options that you can experiment with. Step-by-step. You will learn new possibilities of this technique so that you can freely use it yourself. To show you the different possibilities. I'm going to cut out the center of my stencil. I also already cut out additional stencils. Of course you can do the same and cut out more stencils from regular paper or try other materials. Now, I just have the silhouette of the light bulb to start. I fill it with ink as usual. I would go with the classic version and shade of gray. Now you can take and use tensile or maybe parts stencils that you left earlier. I take this middle part and cover with it the part of the ball that should remain light. And the rest. Everything that I can see I will color with ink. If you compare this image with the other images I made, you will see that the center of the ball was light, and now I made it dark. Let us try a few more variations. Now I'm working with the red or pink color. Without removing the stencil, I put another stencil over it. You can cut out additional stencils. They can be quite simple. Strive circles, any pattern. I mix different colors again, and I get a purple color. Now something is missing from the bottom of the bulb. You can simply use a piece of paper and cover with it the part that doesn't need to get painted. Now I add some recognizable elements. This way the picture can have additional meaning. I have some stencils, we've planned silhouettes. They can make it look like something is growing inside the bulb. I started again with the lightest color, yellow, and then I add some blues. So in the end, I have this green tint. As you can see, you can create very different and unique effects with very simple tools. And if you don't want to cut out additional stencils, you can also create interesting textures in a simpler way. Now, I'm just going to use a piece of paper. I'll start again with the light layer. And now I want to add a texture. I will just lay the edge of my paper or some places to create cool effects and patterns. When I put the yellow color other than black color, the outlines I made with a black color get a little blurry. The yellow paint or lays them slightly and blurs the image. In this case, you can highlight the black part again. But maybe you can use such an effect for your purposes as well. It all depends on what you want to create. Now, I want to show you how to work with completely different material. I have a piece of transparent fabric. It can be less or mesh fabric. See what you can find. So we see now that the structure of the fabric is clearly visible and we can create interesting effects. All these materials can be combined to achieve the desired effect. Well, I have done some curious experiments with different structures. Now it's your turn. Think about how you can apply structure to your illustration. Maybe it will be organic or very geometric. You may cut out more stencils to complete the illustration. And in the next lesson, we will always print our posture. I look forward to seeing you there. 12. Printing the Poster: So in this lesson, we're finally going to start bringing the poster in the format we have chosen. I chose the format A3. As you remember, I made a small sketch for the design of my poster. I will now continue working with this final composition. I hope you have also already decided on a composition and are ready to print your poster as well. In this lesson, we will create our posture in a completely analog way. We will use our stencils and also we will have praxis, everything we learned in the previous lessons. So I have different stencils without the middle part and with Ed. And I'm going to experiment now, just like I did in the previous lessons, I will look at what I have already printed and then decide what I want to use for the poster. First, I want to mark the space so I know how much space the light bulbs will take up and how much space I need to leave for the header. If you remember, I wanted to put my picture on the sheet nine times. So I start by measuring out the margin for my idea, I take three centimeters on the sides and about four centimeters from the bottom. This is often used to create a harmonious composition. It should not look like the whole composition will fall over. I mark everything with very thin lines so I can easily erase it later. I measured out my stencil. The bulb is about eight centimeter high and about four centimeters wide. I'll also leave a few centimeters between the images. I suggest you draw thin lines as well. Don't worry if something doesn't turn out quiet perfectly, we're not machines. The imperfection of analog work is what makes it special. Now my lines are finished. I know exactly where the bulk images will be and where to place the header. By the way, you can prepare a few such sheets if you don't like something at all while working, you can always take another prepared paper. Do not be afraid to spoil it. The more free we experiment, the more interesting insights we get. Gather everything you can work with. Maybe you have already cut out some extra stencils in other lessons. Or maybe you have some interesting paper scraps leftover. If not, you can prepare something. Now, it all depends on your theme and what you want to do. You can take shapes that at first sight have nothing to do with each other and combine them and get very interesting and unexpected combinations. You can also take additional materials such as markers or pencils and complete your illustration with their help. So now we can start printing. I place my stencil in the area marked for it and tape it down. I hold this tensor a little bit with my hands so that it doesn't move while I'm working. As you can see, I made myself a little tool out of piece of sponge tape and an old pencil. This is pretty helpful for keeping your hands from getting dirty. It can be especially helpful when you are working on the final version of your illustration. This way, there will not be a mess left behind on the final work. Now I'm just going to experiment with my stance. Take a look at what I'm doing and get on with your poster. That's what my poster looks like. As you can see, I use pretty simple tools. Just pieces of paper or simple stencils that are quick and easy to cut out. Now we need to figure out how to place our header here. Let us do that in the next lesson. 13. Adding the Typography: In this lesson, we will add typography or header to our poster. There are several ways to add typography. For example, the headline can be cut out from the letters of the newspaper or magazine. You can write it by hand if you have a skill in calligraphy or lettering. But of course you can also use this tensile. That's exactly what I'm going to do because the whole class is about stencil printing. Of course, you can also add digital phones, but we will talk about that in the next lesson. As you can see, I experimented with more and edit a simple liner to the print. This also goes well with the stencils, so try it out. Now, let us move on to the header. I made it a little easier for myself. I measured out the area where I want the header to appear and it fits exactly on the size of a normal office paper. I prepared my phrase on the computer and printed it out to cut out. Of course, you can also write or draw the whole phrase by hand and cut it out to all depends on the aesthetics of your poster, your time, and your technical capabilities. As I work on this header, you can once again see and repeat some of the rules I talked about in previous lessons. I want to remind you again not to worry if a line or some planes don't look perfect in analog printmaking, it's perfectly acceptable and even adds chunk to the work. Pay attention to the letter R. It has the small piece in the center. If I cut out the entire top part of the letter, the small piece would fall out too. So I have to connect it to the plane of the sheet somehow. I will do this by using so-called bridges. This way I can see where to cut and what to leave. At the example of this form, you can also see that it's easy to cut all the lines in one direction. So I cut this tensile with the font. As you can see, I created different versions of the letters. For the letter R, I kept the bridges, and for the other letters, I took the whole middle part away. This way you can clearly see the difference. Now we can transfer the phrase to the poster. I will carefully place it in the area that I marked, especially for it. So there is enough space at the top, ideally also about three centimeters as well as on the sides. But also That's the header is not too close to the illustration. With a little magic, I remove this tensile and here is my result. This is the kind of poster we got using only stands for. Let's see what kind of posters you made by posting them in the project gallery. But that's not all. In the next lesson, I'll show you how to place the header on the poster in Photoshop. And of course, how to prepare our work for use on social media or even for printing. I'll be waiting for you there. 14. Editing – Part I: In this lesson, we will edit our poster so that you can use it for a portfolio, social media, or even printed out. We will also add typography in Photoshop. I scanned my poster in A3 size at 300 DPI. This is the resolution you will need if you want to bring to your poster, I simply open the file in Photoshop. You can do this by right-clicking on your file, or you can just drag and drop the file icon onto the Photoshop icon. Now you can see that the picture has a number of flows. For example, I don't like the fact that the entire composition moved a bit to the right. Also, there are black dots and traces of color where they shouldn't be. And also the colors are dull. After scanning, I will fix all of these flaws and I also will show you how to add the topography. Let us take a look at our workspace at first. What features of the program do we need? First of all, the layers tab. Here you can see all the layers of the document and you can copy them or add new ones. Of course, we also need all the tools that are usually on the left side. And if you want to work with the font later, you need a window character. If you don't have all the tabs you need, you can always find them by clicking on the window tab. There you will find, for example, character tab or layers tab and so on. Let us start working with the layers. Now, there should be only the locked background layer. You can always unlock it and work with it directly. However, I always recommend making a copy of the background layer. We should always have the original image. Just in case to do that, just drag the layer onto the plus icon and we lock the original and make it invisible so we do not accidentally do something to it. So I want to move everything a little bit to the left. To do that, I'm going to select the move tool and I'm going to move to the top layer that I'm working with using the mouse or the arrow keys. You can see that there is a gap on the right side that is not filled with anything. But it's important to me that the background is the same everywhere. In my opinion. The following is the safest way to remove this gap and not spoil anything in the image. Create a new layer by clicking on the plus sign and then fill this layer with the background color white. So I'll take the eyedropper tool in the toolbar on the left and use it to select a color. And now I'll take the bucket tool and fill my new layer with the color. Check that you are in the correct layer. Now you can either leave it that way or combine the two layers. If you don't need to change anything else, you can just right-click on the top layer and choose Merge Down. Now I'm going to remove unnecessary dots and other dirt, as well as the stripe that happened by accident. I'll select the Clone Stamp tool. Now, if you right-click, you will see its properties. It's very similar to the brush tool. You can choose its size and hardness. You can also choose the shape, but I don't need that right now. I will also leave the hardness on the highest value. So let us take a look at how the clone stamp tool works. It takes a pattern from somewhere and inserts it in a new place. It creates copies of it. It's like a patch or a little bit like our stencil printing. We take the ink and put it on the paper. It's similar here. We can take a piece of the image and copy into a different place. Here's how I do it. I hold down the Option or Alt key on the keyboard and we see the little target icon. While we see it, we click on the spot where we want to capture a sample. Then we release the key and click in space where we want to insert it. This way we repeat the process just like a stamp. Since I want the white color everywhere, I just take it and paste it everywhere I see the extra dots or some dirt. Please notice this plus sign moving behind our tool. That's the point from which the program picks up the pattern. So when I hit a bulb with my plus sign, the program already starts copying the bulb. But any action can be undone at anytime with Command Z or Control Z with count plus and minus, you can zoom in and zoom out. Now all the dirt has been removed. The next step is color and saturation. The colors are paler. Then in the original, I create a new adjustment layer by clicking on the black and white circle and choosing levels. The black slider is for a dark tones, the gray for medium, and the white one is for light. Test which settings work best for your illustration. Now we will add some saturation, create a hue saturation adjustment layer, and increase the saturation so that the colors are bright. Again. Feel free to experiment with the program, look for solutions for your work. We are done with the first part of the editing. The work looks good and now I will show you how to add typography in Photoshop. Let's see you there. 15. Editing – Part II: Now it's time to add typography. I have opened the character tab. Here. You can select a font, pick one that you like. I'll keep the one I have already selected here. There are a variety of typefaces. It can be thick or thin or slender it, you can also choose the size and spacing between the lines. Note that for commercial purposes, you need to look for fonts with an appropriate license. For example, in Google fonts. Or if you use Adobe Creative Suite, you can use fonts from there. In general, there are many sources on the Internet for phones with free licenses or inexpensive phones, I will choose the font tool. Click on it and click where I want to place the font. And now you can write what you want. In the top bar, you can select the color you want to use before you start typing. I choose black color using the font settings just shown. I now adjust the font size, boldness, and other parameters as I need them. To move the phone, I again use the move tool. The purple lines you see are so-called smart guides. They help to position the object in the format, try different variations of the font and its placement. I suggest creating a new layer each time and only deactivating the old player, but not deleting it. This way, you can compare different versions later. Well, I've arranged my phone the way I like it. It's your turn to find the right option for your typography. Now, you can look at the poster again and think if there is something to improve. For example, I would like to change the composition a little bit more. So now I'm happy with the result. Of course, you can scan the separate printed objects and arrange them directly in Photoshop. But I wanted to show you both digital and analog options for creating a poster like this. With this knowledge, you can choose any option for yourself. Now let us save our work. We will save one version for print and one for the web. To print this poster in its original format, we need to consider its resolution. Let us check it. To do this, let us go to image, image size and look at the resolution. Here we have 300 DPI. This is good in centimeters. This is still my a free format. Now select File, Save Copy, and we can select JPEG. That's the right format for printing. If you want a PDF, choose File, Save as PDF and save it. Now we save it so that we can use it on the Internet. To do this, we need to reduce the resolution. This will be up to 72 DPI. Now, it will be reduced in size. But I always advise you to keep the original with a high resolution. Just save the PSD file, photoshop file before you reduce the resolution, and then save another copy of it that is smaller. Now, I'm going to reduce the size. This image size is enough to use in a portfolio, website or on social media. That's it. Now, you not only know how to create your illustration with the stencil printing, but also how to edit it so that it will be seen by as many people as possible. Don't forget to share your beautiful results in the project gallery. I have no doubt you have a great results and I'd love to see them. Let us move on to the next lesson and see what we learned. 16. Final Words: I congratulate you on the successful finishing of our class. Thank you for participating, watching, trying new things, and experimenting with me. Now you have everything you need to continue working with stencil printing yourself. You have learned what types of printmaking there are. Which materials do you need for stencil printing and how to use them? You have tried out different variations of stencil printing. From working with one color and creating simple gradients are experimenting with overlays and working with different colors. You also know how to add typography on different ways and how to edit your work. For the third or use, please write in the comments of the class. What did you like most? And what would you like to use in your work? For example, I like to work with one basic color and add some details with additional stencils. Also, don't forget to share your results in the project gallery and leave and evaluation of the class. That would be great if you follow me here and on Instagram, where I show a variety of creative processes and share my work. So I wish you good luck and see you next time.