Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Up close...

a beautiful sight:
"Even with the cold and overcast sky, I am still so pretty!", said Rose.
Just one of the blooms from Romy's rose bush continuing to surprise me every morning.

And then, when I was out in the back yard with Remy, this fallen aspen leaf caught my eye:
Cool, huh.

Monday, October 28, 2013

Not obsessed...

with carving stamps - perhaps mildly addicted!
I found a nice cigar box to keep them in:
Yes, I will need more storage :-)
Why all the fish? I was working on a monotype that needed a LOT of changes - color being the most critical:
Not liking the red...
So after I added more color to obscure the disconcerting red and yes, the muddy pink, I had something that reminded me of the sea. And then of course where were the fish and vegetation?...a nice opportunity to make some stamps for a specific piece:
Transformation!

Monday, October 14, 2013

Bummer :-(

I used a different material (Moo Carve) to carve a positive image. The results were not great, unfortunately.
Here he is:
O no-o-oh :-(
The intact stamped image is my test image. I washed the stamp and when I patted it dry the stamp looked like what you see in the photo. Ouch.
Moo Carve is really easy to carve - very pliable. Previous stamps I have done were carved from Speedball "Easy Carve"; it's a bit more dense and holds the carved line better.
So I tried a negative image with more success (yay!):
Negative image stamp using Moo Carve.
I am so new to stamp carving that every stamp is a chance to learn...something :-)

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

A bird in the hand...

which in this case is a bird critter:
Rubber stamps, yummy :-D
He's a pretty big stamp:
As a rookie stamp carver, I'm still experimenting material removal.
With Copic colors - hmmm, guess he has a crown now:
Perhaps he's an extremely tall duck???

I use my Copics more like watercolor - very little blending..

Monday, October 7, 2013

On a roll :-)

This is so much fun - creating rubber stamps using my own images. Something magical happens when a two-dimensional sketch takes on a three-dimensional form; my little sketch that I can hold in my hand. I thought I would be more intrigued with the ability to stamp multiple images, but really I am in love with the stamps themselves :-D
Here's my second rubber stamp:
I was thinking "Romy", dog spirit, when sketching this.
This little guy is about 1-3/4".

Friday, October 4, 2013

And now for something completely different...

I took a quick break from my current Gelli plate printing to do something I've always wanted to do - carve a stamp. Remy was watching me - and since he's a sweet dog he didn't comment on my "process" or eat any of the pink carving detritus.
So of course I drew a little image of a dog, no surprises there! and burnished it onto the carving block. I had some idea of what to do from reading Geninne Zlatkis's book, "Making an Impression: Designing and Creating Artful Stamps" - a great book.
I grabbed my tools and started.
Et voici, le chien:
Freshly carved, yay!

Here he is with a couple of impressions:
Woof, woof and woof!
I had a bit of a problem with carving the paws due to carving-tool-driver-error; I wandered over the line ;-)
I had a lot of fun and I will be making more.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

New Gelli :-)

Monday was the first day of Gelli Plate Printmaking (online class from Carla Sonheim); I had never used one of these plates before so you know my curiosity knob was turned up to "eleven" :-)
I made the required eight prints... and then some.
Here's one I like:
The start of something....
This is the first layer - with more to come.