Sylvia by Dennis Jacobs

I completed a mixed media painting this weekend, entitled Sylvia. The piece measures 12″ x 16″ and is made of hand cut spraypaint stencils over collage on board. Below is the process by which I created the piece.

As with any painting I do, I start by laying down a base layer of collage. With this particular piece I used clippings from vintage magazines, anatomy books, old magazine ads, maps, newspaper, and photos from military books.

This particular painting required two stencils, based on a digital illustration, to complete. Rather than printing and cutting one stencil for each color I instead use the each stencil for multiple colors. For example, I will cut out the sections that for red, spray it, then tape them back into place. I will then cut out the black sections and spray them. This helps to make sure the registration of the stencil is correct and also saves time on cutting stencils. While this does result in the stencil being destroyed, I only make one off paintings, so I will never need to reuse a stencil. If i were to begin doing multiple paintings of a single image, I would then create one stencil per color needed.

One of the stencils next to the collaged board.

I sprayed the skin tone followed by the red paint first.

Next to go down was the shadows on her face followed by black.

Many stencils and a vintage frame later here is the finished piece. This was the first time I have used an airbrush with custom mixed spraypaint in my work. I used it to create the deep red shadows on her shirt and in the flower and is certainly a tool I will be coming back to. While Montana paints offer a wide selection of colors, it is more economical and sometimes easier mix your own colors. Between the initial vector illustration, collage, and cutting and spraying the stencils this piece took me roughly 12 hours to complete.

2 Comments on “Sylvia by Dennis Jacobs”

Marian

Looks great & I loved hearing about your process!

03-08-10 » 4:51 PM »
Dawn

She’s beautiful, Den.

03-23-10 » 10:21 AM »

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