Showing posts with label Stampbord. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stampbord. Show all posts

Saturday, March 29, 2008

GPP Crusade 18

I know I haven't been doing the Crusades for that long, but I have to say that this has been my FAVORITE! Stamp carving is ADDICTING. I carved three new stamps for
Crusade No. 18. Two of them resemble an ironwork fence and the last one was kind of a spur of the moment carving of a pair of eyes. I have a lot of stamps that have eyes but for some reason, I felt the need for a pair that was bigger.

The designs for the ironwork style stamps were from a book on architectural clip art. I carved them so they could be lined up for a continues design of any length. The larger of the two is about 6 inches wide. The basic design for the eyes was traced from a piece of artwork I have by Christina Lazar-Schuler. The eyes of the woman in the piece I have have such a haunting quality that I thought they would be perfect for a stamp. I traced them on tissue paper and then transfered the pencil to the stamp surface. To get a lighter feel to the shadow and iris of the eyes, I used one of my Stampbord tools that is used to create cross-hatching on Stampbord. It worked well to make that section of the stamp less solid.
These two art journal pages show the stamps I created. The one page includes a bunch of stamped images (birds and flowers) using See Ds Stamps by Sugarloaf. My carved stamp is the fence in the foreground. The other art journal page features both the eyes stamp and the other ironwork stamp (which was stampe in silver Brilliance ink and then embossed using Broken China Distressed Embossing Powder by Ranger Ink. Just a reminder...if you click on the image of the journal page, it will open in a lightbox and you can see it better (and scroll to the other image). I thought I would mention that again since the little symbol that indicates multiple images is difficult to see on the pictures.

Next month's challenge is going to be making stencils. I am getting geared up for that. I actually made a stencil a couple of months ago and still have yet to use it so I know this will give me the kick in the butt I need to finish that project.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Stampbord Artist Trading Cards

First of all, can you believe that I'm actually posting a second entry in one day??? WOW! You can tell I must have had a very productive and creative day. Anyway, I finished up the last of my Stampbord artist trading cards for a swap I'm participating in through the Art Techniques ATCs group on Yahoo. This was one of those swaps were I did three totally different pieces. I am so glad that I am not the swap host. I would have such a hard time assigning pieces to each participant. Hopefully, no matter which ATC each of my fellow swappers receive, they will be happy. I have to say that I love all three and couldn't pick a favorite.


In case you haven't noticed from my last post, I'm using a new way of posting my photos on my blog. My brother just started alpha testing his company's new photo sharing service. I love how I just load my pictures one place and I can arrange them in portfolios to create slideshows. If you are interested in learning more about it, check it out at FocalPower.com When you see the multiple picture icon at the bottom of the photo, it lets you know there are several photos (so click on the photo and use your arrow keys to see the rest).

Friday, March 30, 2007

Go Where the Spirit Moves You

I've been working up an idea for a needle felted art piece and finally had some time today to dedicate to finding the focal image that I wanted. After about two hours of searching, I just didn't find what I was looking for. It is so frustrating when things just don't work. So I decided to take a tour of my studio and see what caught my eye. About a week ago, I got some new rubber stamps and one in particular has been calling to me since they came -- an image of Frida Kahlo. I have been working with Stampbord a lot lately because of my design team work at ILove2Create.com (because that is the technique for the April kit), so I decided to continue on that creative path with my inspiration, Frida Kahlo. I will be the first to admit that I know very little about my muse but I went with my gut and chose colors that seemed to resonate her Mexican heritage. Because she is seen as a cult figure to many, I also chose to give her a pair of gossamer-style wings and a crown made of rays from the sun. As I worked on my 2"x2" piece of Stampbord, I felt like she was coming to life. Unfortunately, the metallic gold of her wings does not come through on the scan of the piece. There is a small shadow box frame that is ready and waiting for her so you may see her soon on the auction block at ebay.