Welcome to my new series of DIY posts, Cheap & Easy. I want to share are all the little things I do that are cheap (or free!) and relatively easy for you to do in your creative life.

My dear friend Dina uses silhouettes in her artwork all the time. I'm captivated by her command of color and composition (and she has a book coming out next February , did you know that? I couldn't be prouder!), how she layers things around these ambiguous woman-shapes in order to express herself. She brings them to classes, and has a ready collection at her disposal.

So how do we begin to use them in our artwork?

Behold! The often-ignored-or-glared-at magazine ad!

I found the one below in an issue of 'Real Simple' grabbed at Half Price Books for a whopping $0.50. It's already paid for itself!

I cut her out, then traced her onto some Tyvek. Yes, Tyvek. The stuff you use to mail things. Need some? You might be able to find some at the post office (*wink*)

Using my craft knife, I cut her out!

Wanting to see how she performed, I did a quick-and-dirty two-layer monoprint with my gel plate.

First Layer: Color!

Second Layer: Paint w/ my new stencil on top!

All finished! Now that I know how awesome she looks, I'm sure to use her in my journal soon! Plus, I have a cool two-layer print to hang up on the wall.

For more gel plate fun, well...I'll be posting a nice, fun tutorial video this week!