Stencil painting... a work in progress

​by Karen Lynn Ingalls

Dragonfly stencil painting, with relief printing • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

An artist I met recently, on seeing this and the images of other dragonfly paintings of mine, told me that Native Americans in the Southwest considered the dragonfly a symbol of life. Where you find dragonflies, you find water – and water is essential for life.

In this little painting, and the others in the series, I have created the stencil of the dragonfly, from a drawing I did of a dragonfly some years ago. I have cut a new block to print the dragonfly's image on the stenciled one, in the next layer of the process.

Combining methods like this is one of the things I love most about mixed media – you try a little of this, and what about that? And what if you did this...? It encourages experimentation and discovery in ways that other kinds of painting don't necessarily.

I have no idea how they'll turn out – I'm just enjoying the process. I'm looking forward to teaching both relief printing and making and painting with stencils (in two different workshops this time) in the coming year. You can do so much with both these processes! Here's to the joy of discovery!

​