The Colourguru

Handcut Rubber

As I said yesterday - I worked on creating some of my own hand carved stamps.  After a few nicks & cuts - in my fingers I mean! - I am happy with the outcome & I hope to use these as both background & feature stamps in time.  It's a very tactile experience & I find it really fun to do - have a go - it's not that hard.  I used historic ornament books to create these designs - with some inspiration from the amazing Michelle Ward from Green Pepper Press & her 'Street Crusade No: 18'.  Still drawing - practice, practice, practice!  Challenge No: 7 was to draw a jar or a bottle from the kitchen - so there it is - one of my fav. jams. (jelly)  The next (catch up challenge) is to draw a piece of jewellery & I am working on drawing my Nan's engagement ring.  It is proving more difficult than I first imagined, but I hope to have it finished soon.

Hand Cut Rubber Stamps

as promised, I have stamped out some of the stamps I have created.  I would like to do a big canvas with them, but I have alot of art committments at the moment, so I am not sure when I can.  My subject is the Tree of Life, so the stamps are just a compilation of various images significant to me.   I have pictured here some of the shades of green I have been dying up...........oh YUM.......I DO love a nice mossy green.......I could eat these!

Rubber, rubber everywhere

My latest obscession actually started over a year ago when I saw the incredibly talented Jenene carve a primative looking pear stamp from a meat tray.  Though I liked the idea, the thought of recycling something from bloody meat turned my stomach.  THOUGH OF COURSE, those sort of trays are used by other industries & if I had really given it any thought I could have come up with another alternative to the tray.  Then when we were in New Zealand recently, this hand carved style of stamping was quite prevelent (however, as creative as the NZ'er's are the whole country is devoid of Stampington Co. mags, so I don't think I could survive that!!!)........then just recently.............enter Michelle Ward from Green Pepper Press.  Michelle has a monthly challenge called 'Street Team' THEN I saw the gorgeous work that Jo Wholohan  & Deryn Mentock were doing with there's.....(take a look at Deryn's angel - it's amazing!)....& I was hooked.  (facilitated by the VERY generous Sarah who started me off with some rubber!!!....oh, which I PROMPTLY used up the night it arrived then HAD to find something locally to feed my new obsession!!! LOL!!!  I REALLY AM beyond help)  I found the product called SOFT CUT - which is a soft 'rubber like' block that carves really easily, it doesn't crumble, but it does break away quite easily when you are doing a small design.  I began with my old sculpting tools, however quickly found they weren't fine enough for what I wanted to do......I created a whole collection of 'hands' that have the appearance of mutant coral - in an attempt to create ONE that actually resembled a hand........it wasn't until I increased the scale that I got something that I was happy with..........if you look at the picture above you will see my little bird that actually resembles a turkey!! (the head shape is all kinds of wrong!)  I did, (ALL by myself) manage to create several respectable botantical items which I am quite happy with.   I drew with pencil directly onto the stamp, then started to carve it.  After I had cleared a little rubber, I stamped it to see how it was coming up & get a sense of what needed refining.........AFTERWARDS I read the instructions............LOL!!.............& found that you can transfer images onto the rubber & that you START with the ink on.........me thinks YOU betta read the instructions........don't listen to me!  DON'T say I didn't give you fair warning though.........I have been up 'til the VERY wee hours this week doing this.......it's really lovely & tactile & fun to do!

When you click on GGP you will need to scroll down a fair way, as the new challenge has already begun.  This is the last challenge, No 18.