Doodling with Stencils: Using Stencils to Improve your Drawing Skills

Have you ever mixed doodling with stencils into your art journal or creative projects? Stencils can be very helpful when practicing improving drawing skills. Starting with a defined shape can be helpful and inspire creativity.

Why Use Stencils?

Why use stencils to improve your drawing skills? Stencils have defined shapes that can be traced onto a project. From there you can add your own drawing and doodling to add texture and dimension to an image. It’s an easy place to discover your own style and creativity.

When we start learning to draw, many of us end up staring at a blank piece of paper. That’s a hard place to be. Stencils can be used as a jump off point for drawing and doodling. By starting with a general shape, it’s amazing what beautiful patterns and designs you can come up with.

The Importance of Doodles

Doodling with Stencils Tag Detail using Posca Pens and Tim Holtz Distress Inks

I believe that learning to doodle and draw is an important skill to have. It keeps us from limiting ourselves to other artist’s designs and helps us develop new creative skills. Doodling is fun because it is meditative and carefree. You don’t need to worry about perspective and accuracy of composition. Instead, it’s about patterns and experimenting with different designs.

Doodling is a meditative practice for me. I used to doodle all the time when I was working in offices that would have long meetings. It was a way to keep my mind focused on the conversation around me. Doodling can also help us find finding restorative focus. It requires concentration, allows us to slow down a bit which is a great for a self-care habit.

I believe doodling can be the first step in learning how to draw. It’s a great way of learning pen control and the repetition of patterns helps us learn how to draw more accurately. Muscle memory is an important component in building strong drawing skills.

Doodling with Stencils Tag Project

For today’s project I am using a tag to show you doodling with stencils. This can be easily adapted to an art journal page, scrapbook page, canvas, card, or other project.

Step 1: Adding Distress Ink to Tag

Adding Tim Holtz Distress Inks to a manila tag

Start by blending a variety of Tim Holtz Distress Inks onto the surface of the art tag. I used ink colors Salty Ocean, Picked Raspberry, Blueprint Sketch and Wilted Violet applied with a domed mini blending foam. For more information on how to blend distress inks, click here.

Step 2: Adding Distress Oxide Ink Through a Stencil

Adding Speckled Egg Distress Oxide Ink through NWD Disjointed Stencil to add texture to manila tag

To create subtle variation to the tag, add Speckled Egg Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Ink through a stencil. Use a more open stencil with larger holes for the best result. The Distress Oxide inks have more opaque properties than the translucent Distress Inks. So even though the Speckled Egg is a lighter color, it will soften the colors below. The result will be a subtle pattern on the surface of the tag.

Step 3: Outlining Stencil Shapes with a Pen

Outlining NWD Disjointed Stencil with Posca White Paint Pen

Outline the stencil shapes with a pen of your choice. For this project, I used Posca Paint Pens, but you could also use a Gelly Pen for this step. Outline all the stencil shapes or create variation by having some areas without outlining while other areas are outlined.

Step 4: Add Mark Making and Doodling

Adding Doodles with Posca White Paint Pen

Fill some of the outlined shapes with doodles and mark making. This can be doodles like chevrons, flowers, squiggles, squares, swirls, and triangles. You can also look at objects around you for inspiration. This can include things like the grain in a table or the shape of a lamp. There are so many things around us to provide inspiration.

Take some time to research different shapes as well. Online there are many patterns that are available to use or can be used for inspiration.

Step 5: Adding Stamped Images with Archival Ink

Adding Wild Whisper Designs Stamps to Tag with Tim Holtz Distress Ink and Doodles

At this point, you have created a beautiful pattern and can consider this a finished project. If you would like to continue to add layers, use a black paint pen or Gelly pen to add your own drawings to your tag.

If you are uncomfortable drawing your own focal images, stamps can be a great way to add more imagery. For this project I used a mountain, bear, and quote stamps from Wild Whisper Designs. Using archival ink, I stamped these images onto the tag.

Step 6: Fill in Areas with Paint Pen

Adding Black Posca Paint Pen to darken stamped images

If you use archival ink to stamp, you will notice some areas have resisted the ink. This is caused by the paint pen doodles. If there is less contrast than what you would prefer, use a paint pen to add in additional color. The other option is using paint to stamp the images instead of ink as the paint will not be resisted the way the ink is.

Questions?

Doodling with Stencils with Tim Holtz Distress Inks and Posca Paint Pens

Do you have any questions on how to use doodling with stencils in your art tags and projects? I would love to answer any questions that you may have. You can comment below or contact me directly. I hope that you give this technique a try. Adding doodling with stencils can be a different way of using your art supplies and help your drawing skills. I hope that you take some time for creative self-care this week!

Project Supply List

Tim Holtz Distress Inks: Salty Ocean, Blueprint Sketch, Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet
Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Ink: Speckled Egg
Posca Paint Markers: White, Black and Light Blue
Wild Whisper Designs NWD Disjointed Stencil
Wild Whisper Designs Stamp Sets: Adventure and Where to Next
Ranger Jet Black Archival Ink
Stamping Block
Manilla Tag

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