Drawing from Nature: The Story of my Tangled Branches Stencil

I draw all my stencils myself — sometimes I cut them by hand, but most of the time I let a cutting machine do the work. There are quite a few brands out there, with different features and price tags. I started out with a Silhouette Cameo a few years back, but eventually upgraded to my current setup: the smallest Graphtec, which is a professional plotter.

I often think about just how many different ways I use stencils. In the early days, I cut every one of them by hand. They were tiny — mostly for things like enamelling, etching, and roller printing in jewellery. These days, I’ve scaled up quite a bit! I’m experimenting with larger pieces and testing out materials I never would have thought to use for art before.

Tangled Branches – A Story in Stencils

This design has a little bit of a story behind it. It started with a tree that used to grow in our old garden — one of those trees you barely notice at first, until one day you realize how beautiful it really is. What made it special was that it lost its leaves every year, which is pretty rare around here in subtropical Queensland.

One autumn afternoon, when the branches were bare, I took a few photos of the tangled tracery against the sky. There was something about that pattern — delicate but wild — that really stuck with me. Those photos became the starting point for my very first stencils. They were fine and intricate, and back then I used them for etching metals and enamelling jewellery.

Now, years later, I’m revisiting that same design on a much larger scale. Thanks to the cutter’s software, it’s easy to size up or down and experiment. It’s funny how a single tree from an old garden can keep branching out creatively in so many directions.

Having your own cutting machine opens up a whole new world. It’s amazing how simple it has become to take a design from an idea to something ready to print.

A friend of mine has a Cricut, and even though she’ll be the first to admit she’s not very tech-savvy, she’s had no trouble at all using it — which really says a lot about how accessible these machines have become.

Right now, I’m working on a project using one of my favourite designs, ‘Tangled Branches’. It’s one of those patterns I keep coming back to. I’m planning to release it soon as a downloadable set — I’m just putting the finishing touches on the stencils. Can’t wait to share them!

I’ve always loved the graphic quality of these branches — they have such a strong presence, no matter how I use them. I’ve printed them on my mobile papers before, just small sections of the design for layering in Gelli prints. But this week, I decided to try something a little different — I stencilled them onto a piece of drop cloth that I might turn into a big, casual art bag.

For anyone who is not familiar with it, drop cloth is the heavy cotton fabric painters use to protect floors, it comes in a few different weights. I gave mine a good wash and iron first, just to soften it a bit and get rid of the creases.

This time, I used the mask version of Tangled Branches, which means the colour fills the negative space rather than the lines themselves — the opposite effect of a stencil. I applied the paint with my favourite rounded makeup sponges (they’re perfect for this — and super cheap on eBay!). The colour is one of my all-time favourites: Atelier Interactive Blue Black (Indigo). I didn’t bother adding a fabric medium since this bag is more of an art piece than a practical one. It’ll go through the wash fine — and even if the print fades over time, that’s okay with me. It’s all part of the journey.