Hoppo Bumpo (n): A children's game. Played by folding one's arms and hopping on one leg. Aim is to bump opponents, so that they lose their balance. Last person standing wins.


September 29, 2008

Stencilling-along this week



Its taken me a little while to decide my next freezer paper stencilling step. But its become clear - I would like to have a go at turning a photo of a digger like this, into a stencil (.... isn't this everyone's dream?). Er, maybe not this particular digger .... though it was a particular favourite with certain members of the family, who happily posed in front of it (see bottom left corner, for proud, small boy).

If I understand the small amount of reading that I have done, I will need to convert a photo to grayscale and then adjust the brightness and contrast until the image is two toned. Simple, right? Or maybe not. I don't own Photoshop, so I might have a bit of work ahead of me.

Goals for this week

  1. Read about creating a two-toned image
  2. Work out the best way to create a two-toned image with an application on my PC
  3. Read about how islands and bridges are best used to keep the whole show together (or not)
  4. Create a stencil from a two-toned image

References
I'm going to have a look through Crafster's stencilling FAQ and do a bit of Googling, to see what information I can come up with. Despite not owning Photoshop I still think this tutorial at Photoshop Lab is great. I also like this one over at Melissa Clifton's site. They give a fantastic idea of what you are trying to achieve. I am going to try and find the simplest way possible to create my two-toned digger making do with the software I've got (any suggestions welcome!).

Let's see how I go ... I'll let you know on Thursday.

5 comments:

  1. Hi - how did you go with fusing the freezer paper? I still had lots of trouble with this, and I'm reluctant to show my stencil because of the bloops where the paint went under the stencil (because it wouldn't fuse). Any tips? I haven't got any water in the iron!

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  2. You should be able to change a photo to grayscale and play with the contrast etc in most basic photo editing software. If you get stuck, I'd be happy to help as I have photoshop.

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  3. It's cool making your own stencil, as opposed to having to fins someone else's not quite right one. :p Don't forget to show us the results!

    Taccolina, did you have the iron hot enough??

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  4. I can't wait to see what you end up with after the grey scale, your boys are so lucky

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  5. Cool! I've done my monotone print, and I'm going to try a two tone storm trooper this week!

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