Happy New Year...I hope your new year's celebrations were fun and safe and that you're ready to have your best year yet!
My first challenge this year was to carve an ampersand stamp to use on my start to finish project. So, I found a cool ampersand symbol and adjusted it slightly to fit what I wanted for my project (the one I found was too big and long, so I made it squatty-er and smaller) and carved away. I was so excited!! Too bad the end result wasn't what I was hoping for. Here is my process:
The symbol I found is on the far left and the far right is what I ended up wanting:
And here is the final result when I stamped with what I made:
It ended up being too "goop-y" looking and didn't have enough detail to it. In other words, epic fail. Okay, maybe "epic" is a bit dramatic, but considering how excited I was to start, it felt pretty epic at the time.
So, I'm going to have to take a different spin on the hand-carved stamp. I'm still going to use one, but I'm going to make it bigger and instead of carving it on a rubber block (easy to carve, but difficult to get a lot of detail when you need super-fine lines), I'm going to use a linoleum block instead. It is harder to carve, but I think it will give me the detail I am looking for. Expect an update next time...I'm excited again!
In other news, Joe and I went yesterday to a local indoor flea market to look around and search for goodies. I love a good indoor flea market...you never know what treasures you might find (and usually at great prices, too!)! :-) I found several fun things (some great fabric, a few glass dishes to put things in [love these for my studio!], and various other little things I can incorporate into my artwork), but my "best in show" were the vintage postcards I found. Here are a few of them:
Aren't these great?! They just don't make sweet stuff like this any longer....I mean, who sends a postcard to someone that says "many happy returns" anymore? It's sad, really. It was fun to read the backs of the cards and see what what people were saying to each other. One I picked up was even a love letter!
I plan to use these in my artwork...a few ideas are already spinning in my head. I may even make it possible to read the backs of the cards as I incorporate them into my art. How, you say? Well, I'll keep that a secret until I start working on them!
Until next time, happy days...stay warm out there!
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