Monday, January 14, 2008

What A Difference A Day Makes!

jTaking Sundays off from work is the best thing to do....however, it seems that by the evening somehow I have slipped back in to working but then I feel okay about it...

A couple of months ago I purchased Jane Dunnewold's book "Finding Your Own Visual Language.

She has pages of suggestions for finding your own voice which are a lot of fun to do. I have done the exploding shapes which gets really neat! But she also suggested carving a stamp a day to get lots of stamps made. I took a workshop from her at ArtQuiltClaremont in April, 2006. She introduced me to carving Dick Blick 1 x 1 and 1 x 2" erasers. I have gone through lots and lots of those...my onesies and twosies and have frequently used them in some of my work.

Well, I ordered 30 new carving blocks from Dick Blick and they arrived mid December so I have been carving since. I am only going to show you five that I have done...I think I have done about 15 of these so far. It is so soothing to do these....lots of times I do it when I need to do something but I don't know what. These are all 4 x 4" blocks...the images are not stamped well as I just used an old stamp pad and did it on hard paper...my sketch book. The blue ones are done with paint but just quickly to check the image.





I have a collection of geometric shapes I have done and more based on circles.

Elin Waterston has been carving stamps also. This very gifted artist has been doing a number of animals which are just wonderful. But she also provided a source for round carving blocks and she has been using a different manufacturer so, not to be left out in the cold, off I went on line to order more carving blocks....can't have enough of those things...especially since I don't knit!

My class is getting all set up and I think I know what I am doing! What an adventure!

And then, later this week I am heading down south to the Road 2 California show in Ontario. Three of us will drive down on Thursday and return Saturday. That will be fun. And then, I anticipate being able to do a little bit of my art! What a concept!

3 comments:

Elin said...

Coolio. I like the bottom one especially.

Thanks for the shout out. Can't wait to see what you do with the round blocks!

Gerrie said...

Love the stamps. I wish I could go warm up at the RD 2 CA with you. Have fun!

Karoda said...

I'm carving stamps as well and recently discovered Elin's blogI ...just started last week and the Dunnewold book was the impetus to actually get started after months of having the supplies. Digging you orgnanics in the round stamps.