How to Paint a Mandala Canvas with a Stencil

Have you painted with stencils? They are making a huge comeback in interior design and decorating at the moment. I keep seeing them on furniture and walls, and used to create wall art – even on floors! I’ve been wanting to paint some large canvas wall art for a while. In fact, I bought the canvasses ages ago and they have been moved from pillar to post around the house as I try to find time to play with paint in peace. So when the chance came to play with a mandala stencil, I knew this was the perfect chance to create something for the main bathroom. Wouldn’t you love to know how to paint a mandala canvas? I’m all over it!

This beautiful mandala came from Stencil Revolution, an online retailer with a huge range of designs. They are a small family-run business in Florida who cut each stencil to order.  They have the cutest family pictures on their website – you can see it really is a family thing, not some big company.

Check them out here: Stencil Revolution

      

They have stencils for everything – Halloween, Christmas, Walls, Tiles, Animals, Religious, Military, Sports, States, Letters & Numbers and more. If you are about to start Halloween decorating, this haunted house might be just the thing for the front door. Most stencils come in a bunch of sizes and I love the idea of stencilling a Christmas tree on a wall! But maybe my favourite find as I clicked around their site was the tile stencil section. How cool to paint your own floor tiles!!

How to Paint a Mandala Canvas with One Huge Stencil

Let me tell you all about my canvas so you can create one too. I only used one large stencil in three different ways to create an interesting piece of wall art for our bathroom.

What You Need

What To Do

Set yourself up on a large table with a drop cloth to protect the surface. You will need all of your paints, a paint tray and sponge along with your canvas. Think about where you want to paint your stencil. Do you want the entire stencil or just a section of it? The stencils from Stencil Revolution are reusable and can be cleaned although I didn’t clean mine between sessions. My canvas was painted over a couple of days in three sessions to let each one dry between painting. I started with the full-size mandala in two shades of plum pink. Position your stencil where you want it, then tape the edges with painters tape. This will come off easily later without lifting the surface or the paint, but will hold your stencil in place while you work.

I started with my darker shade of pink in the centre area of the mandala. Dip your sponge in the paint then dab it into another section of your paint tray to take most of the paint back off. Excess paint will bleed under the edges of the stencil so you want less paint rather than more. You can go over an area more than once to build up the colour but you can’t easily remove paint that has seeped under the edge. Dab gently over your stencil to lay down the paint working from the centre in circles around your mandala design. As I got about a third of the way from the centre, I added some of the lighter pink to my sponge to create a mixture of the two colours. As I got to the outer edge, I switched to just the lighter colour. This created a gradual change in the colour throughout the mandala. Once you’ve filled your stencil and you’re happy with the amount of paint, let it dry for half an hour or so before you gently remove the stencil. Allow the canvas to dry completely – overnight if possible – before you reposition your stencil and paint the next section.

I painted a smaller corner section in lighter pink. This time I positioned my stencil hanging off the edge of the canvas and taped it into place securely. I also used painters tape to cover some of the outer dots for the second mandala. Depending on your stencil, you could easily tape sections off and create a different looking mandala by having those areas unpainted. The painters’ tape is great for this because it is easy to tear or cut into the size you need.

Again paint by dabbing the colours and be careful not to load the sponge with too much paint. I again worked from a darker colour in the middle to lighter at the edge of this corner. Later I painted a blue/ purple mandala as well. These colours match the towels in our main bathroom. I positioned this one hanging off another corner to create balance. None of my three images overlap, but you could certainly overlap them. Just make sure the first image is completely dry before you try to paint the second image on top so that the stencil doesn’t smudge the first one.

My Top Tips

Disclosure: I received my mandala stencil from Stencil Revolution as a gift. This post is purely my opinions and tutorial sharing something I loved working with.

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