A stencil can go as big as you can cut one. But once your artwork is several feet across, cutting a sheet that big on a machine isn’t practical. You’d need a huge cutter, or a stack of panels to line up. There’s an old-school way that scales to a whole wall: project it, trace it, cut it, paint it.
What you’ll need
- A projector. You can borrow or rent one for not much, maybe $40.
- Your stencil design. Make it on Bay Stencil and use the color separation preview from your delivery email, which shows every color layer together.
- Large sheets of stencil material: poster board, cardboard, mylar. I used TyVek, which is a flexible, breathable construction material you can get at any building supply store.
- A marker or pencil, a sharp craft knife, and a big surface for spreading out.
- Spray paint.
1. Project
Darken the room, or wait for dark if you’re outside. Put the projector as far back as you can, centered on your material, and use its keystone setting so the image isn’t stretched into a trapezoid. The farther back the projector is, the bigger the image, and the brighter the projector you need.
2. Trace
Trace the outline of each color area onto the material. For a multi-color design, trace one layer per sheet of your stencil medium, and mark a few registration points (corners or crosshairs) on every sheet in the same spots, so the layers line up when you paint. Keep a printed color copy of the design nearby to check which color each area should be.
3. Cut
Cut out the traced areas. Leave bridges wherever a piece would otherwise fall out, like the middle of an O. Your design from Bay Stencil already shows where they go.
4. Paint
Put the first layer up, line it up with your registration marks, and paint. Let it dry, then do the next layer.
Or skip the stencil and paint straight onto the wall
For a one-off mural, you can project directly onto the wall, pencil in the outline of each color area with a code for its color, and paint by hand. The same projector setup works from about 2 feet up to 20 feet or more. For a bigger image you just need a brighter projector or a darker room.
Other ways to go big
If you’d rather cut on a machine, Bay Stencil can split a big design across panels that line up with registration marks: how to make oversize stencils on your craft or laser cutter and how to paint an oversize stencil using registration marks.