Monday, February 21, 2011

Tracing

The topic today is tracing. I will teach you all aspects of tracing a stencil.

Go and find your favorite picture on the internet. Now, from here we can do one of two things: print out the picture or not.

First we will discuss tracing when you print off the picture. So, first print the picture of your choosing. Then secondly we will put the poster board on top of the picture.

Now, go and get your tape because now you are going to tape the picture to the poster board. After, you have done that then all you have to do is put the combined poster board and picture on top of the light box and trace the picture.

Once you are done tracing then take off the tape and see how you did. If it looks like you want it to then the next step is to cut it out.

Now, I will tell you how to trace if you do not print out the picture. This works best with a laptop.

Choose your picture. Then go to full screen mode. Also, you may have to make the picture larger.

After you have done all of this then lay the poster board on the screen and make sure the picture's magnification fits how you want it to on the poster board. Then tape down the poster board to the laptop and trace.

Now, tracing gets easier with time. At first you may have trouble with tracing. You may have a shakey hand and because of that you may have trouble with straight lines. But no worries. I have a very simple way to be rid of such a problem.

To trace with a steady hand all you have to do is breathe out when you trace a line. So, trace a bit then stop and then take a breathe and blow it out, and then again and again until the picture is complete. This should take care of any shakey hands you may have while tracing.

For my next trick I will show you how to cut with the x-acto knife.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for all the stenciling tips! Tracing has always been a little difficult for me.

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  2. Nice tip about the shakey hands. I always had trouble tracing straight lines.

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  3. You give really good step by step instructions that are easy to follow for all of us non stencilers! Good job!! :D

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  4. Interesting tip. I wonder why breathing out make your hand steadier.

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