Liberty Bell Stencil

To create this stencil, we took a picture and applied the threshold filter in photoshop. This created a deep contrast between the darks and lights, that would help us later on in the project. We then chose to cut out the black or white parts in the picture, then used the Xacto knife to cut it out. Following the cutting out, we spray painted the picture, and a product like the one above was made. I chose my backround because of the color and view. I took random pieces of books and magazines and glued them to the cardboard, creating a collage. After the pieces were glued on, I painted it over the collage with green paint. I knew that I was already going to spray paint the stencil black, so I figured that turquoise would be a good contrast color in the final product. In my stencil, the positive space represented the part that we cut out, in my case the Liberty Bell. The negative space was everything around it that wasn't cut out. Using the Xacto knife wasn't very hard, but some precautions such as not cutting towards your own hand and making sure it doesn't slip when your cutting came in the way of creating the stencil. Some people got hurt by the Xacto blades, but most people were fine and followed common sense safety precautions. Spray painting was a fun experience, it is easier than painting with a brush, and in some cases looks better in a final product. Spray paint makes it easier to create patterns within the painting. I chose black on turquoise for my background, because I have seen the color contrast in other places, and thought that it looked particularly good.