Lucky Dog to Lotus Flower

View this post on Hive: Lucky Dog to Lotus Flower

---

Stencils from (reclaimed) Dog-food Bags

---

--

Hello my friends,

As some of you may already know, I have a passion for using reclaimed items in my artwork. This passion was ignited whilst studying 'Interior Design' with a project called 'Reclaim Reframe'.

The scope of the project was to source materials that were recycled from one item and re-purpose them into a new item with a new function. My interpretation at the time was to reclaim the cables from old-skool playstation guns and reframe them into actual skipping ropes (oh, the horror..!)

These days, I have an abundant supply of dog food bags and for months, I've been trying to think of a way to re-use the plastic. They make excellent paint catchers for when I'm doing my fluid art but I always felt they could be put to a much better use, somehow...?

Well today, I think I may have found that use - I've been holding back from making stencils over the past couple of weeks, only because I didn't have anything suitable to cut them from and when I emptied the 'Lucky Dog' bag this morning, I looked at it and thought, 'I might as well give it a try'. (I mean, who doesn't like free art supplies?)

---

_{Yellow: design used as a mask (ghost print - top right)
Purple: stencil design applied with a sponge}

---

Anyhoo, the results are positive... overall, I think the stencil turned out pretty good and the plastic cut very easily... in fact, the only problems I had, were due to my own errors, such as working with a dull blade and some flaws in the design causing problems during both the printing and stenciling process (but wouldn't be an issue if I were screen-printing). The only negative was the plastic might be a bit flimsy for some uses but I already have some ideas about how to fix that.

Soooooo, will I be exploiting this unexpected freebie in my creative quest through the (sometimes very expensive) world of art supplies?

Well, frankly, YES..!

Today's experiment may not have produced the perfect result but I can definitely see the potential.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my post, I really do appreciate your time.

And remember to keep smiling, it makes people wonder what you're thinking...!

If you enjoyed reading my post, please follow, comment and upvote.
All photos, stories and graphics are my own work unless otherwise noted.

_{Make your own steemitboard footer with this post by @arcange}

_{Looking for some fun games to play on Steemit? Build an empire with Drugwars}

Proudly representing

Proud supporter of @steeming-hot