For Ferret's Sake!

Back in the fall, I wanted a pair of rats. But then I got a few messages from my friend asking if I wanted a ferret. And messages from her girlfriend about what a good ferret parent I would be. And snapchat after snapchat of said ferret. And assurance that the ferret was potty trained and the perfect fit for me as a person and... well, his name is Fenrir and I love him.

Look at that little face! 

So my little project last week was painting a portrait of him in his natural habitat- trouble. 

He inspired it, fittingly, by ripping the packaging open on this canvas while he was hopping around, chirping like a little jerk. 

I covered how I tackle pet portraits last post, so I want to focus on what made this piece especially fun.

The little toe prints that he's "in trouble for" in the painting. 

To get the ferret print effect without the fear of everything going to hell, we took Fen when he was placid (a rare occasion) gently dabbed his front paws on an ink pad and then pressed them against a sheet of paper. I cannot express that the only thing that made me feel more ridiculous than fingerprinting a ferret, was the fact that he went along with it so willingly. We took him to the bathroom to wash his little paws after and he grabbed the washcloth and wiped them off himself. It was criminally cute.

Armed with the prints, I carved little stamps of them. To make the prints on the canvas, I used the stamps and a very rough fan brush to lightly drag the paint like his fur would.

I was beyond happy with the end result. It ended up being the perfect cross between weird creativity that I crave and a flex of my technical skills (I even got to slip one of my hands in there.)

Mermaids or When I'm being honest

Back in October I was playing along with the whole "inktober"  make something inky every day thing. I'd say it was a particularly rough month for me, but with how often I use that phrase I think it's just kind of a perpetual thing. 

Anyhow, I wanted to pretend to have some sort of inspiration so I could post something neat-o on instagram instead of another fucking hand. I started to go for a very safe, very cliche mermaid. And then I veered wildly off into what chronic depression / anxiety has felt like to me. That I am being gnawed at and fighting constantly no matter how well I look like I am doing or how much creative energy I am putting out into the world.

I came up with this little sketch and really liked the concept. It kept bouncing around in my head and finally last week I had time to revisit it. 

This started with redrawing the sketch with actual human anatomy in mind. I notice I tend towards the same simplified style when I am doodling, which gets the point across for me to redraw it later, is all I can really say about it. 

I tried to de-cute the depression fish monster a bit while I was at it. 

Carved a stamp. I like texture in my stamps, usually, so I tend to make sure to carve neatly so that any stray lines capture the form instead of just being wonky. Same concept as if you were making a drawing just with a bunch of lines, except you don't know for sure which are going to actually show up until it's done. 

Print of the stamp. Also how I realized I really need to buy an ink pad that costs more than a buck if I am going to spend so much time dealing in stamps now. 

I did a test print on a dictionary page. And determined I also need to just get some good printing ink and find where my brayer got off to. 

It amused me, in a sort of sad way, that one of the conversations I had when showing the prints off went like this:

"Look, I made a stamp."

"I see. It's a mermaid."

"Well, kinda. It's a woman being eaten by a horrible fish monster."

"Oh."

"See? She's trying to hold it off so it won't consume her completely."

"huh. She looks like she's doing well and pretty happy."

Which I guess just means I got exactly what I was going for in the stamp. 

place your bets now if next week will be back to pets. 

another sketchbook

My blogging habits have been abysmal lately. I've been busy as fuuuuuuuuuuuu and by the time I remember to blog it's Monday already. 

I finished another sketchbook. Or, kinda finished it. I flipped it upside down and backwards and am working on filling the backs now. 

Without further ado. My favorite pages. Apologies for overlap with the hands post because damn I like some of the hand pages. 

This was the first page. I did it quickly at the park while the kid and the husband man were playing frisbee. 

Sometimes I journaled a bit on the pages. Like about my many toads.

This was a family affair. Everyone took turns drawing us people. I will never get over my husband's stick figures.

As my entry suggests here, I've actually taken to scheduling art time into my planner. Either by setting goals for x,y,z art project each week or just scheduling in some ME time. I think I averaged about 2-3 pages a week for this sketchbook, which is not bad considering we got a kid and moved nearly 1000 miles in that time span.

I took my field watercolors out on a lot of walks. The kid would lay on the ground listening to Fall Out Boy and I would paint. Lazy summer indeed. 

I did more goofing around pages this journal too, including imprints and abstracts and splotches.

I found a style I was happy with and thought would be my style forever. And then have since moved on with my life and am doing mostly simple line drawings and stencils again.

These watercolors, though.

Some days were really rough. Art was a great distraction.

I found my old spearhead while I was cleaning and keep it on my desk now. When my desk is clean, it is the only thing on my desk. My family thinks I am weird.

More hands, bloodhound gang lyrics, because I am a lady of class.

This wonderful thing happened. My phone started giving me countdowns for how long until it was supposed to start raining and hot damn that tickled my fancy and imagination.

Another page done during our travels. My husband, same ol' style I love.

Trying to do more drawing again. After the move things got kind of fucked up as far as art went but I am trying really really hard to make sure art doesn't become a big deal again. The last thing I want is to be intimidated by a blank page, so sometimes I draw even when I don't want to.

Baby-sitting this fucker for a friend. She is less than impressed with me.

And finally, near the end I took a moment to go back to my roots with bold lines and topless ladies. I have done a lot of art lately that I don't consider my passion and I have to try to remember to still make time and find balance for things I enjoy too. It's rough.

And that's the highlights of this sketchbook. I've made a few other things lately I hope to space out posting, so fingers crossed, same time next week?

stamps, watercolors, coldbrew, and other crap on my desk

Let's make this snappy because I am running on a borrowed laptop, minimal sleep, stolen time and too much caffeine. 

Postcards!

Hand carved stamps, I have a drawer full next to my desk. 

Working on an 11x14? chunk of mixed media paper. I painted very rough shapes and colors in watercolor for each stamp. This was all totally freehand and wonky, how I like it.

This kept going.

And going... I kept the stamps nearby so I didn't forget what went where. 

Finally stamping over the rough painted parts with black ink.

Added some wonky pen lines and littler stamps to fill up the awkward space between stamps.

slice and chop and we've got 8 postcards.

Hoping for another miracle this week in the form of me actually finding the time/energy to send these fuckers off to all some the lovely people who have contributed to the teetering pile of mail on my windowsill. But I won't hold my breath.

Mindless Mail Art

As I mentioned last week, inspiration has been hitting hard. These stamp and watercolor pop art inspired postcards have been the perfect palate cleanser for me while I am sitting listening to music and just trying to noodle a bit.

    

Such delightful simplicity.

The process is easy. Cut postcards down (or buy precut ones, I'm not the mail police), use a ruler and pencil to divide your space, stamp lightly, paint, stamp again.

The great thing is that a little wonkiness makes these. I didn't photograph the ruler step, so let's get on to the stamped cards.

I used stamps I have carved for past projects including the one I made back in the head lumps post a couple weeks ago. The cat and goldfish were both made for ATC's once upon a time and the angler fish has long been a staple in my faux cancellations and faux postage making supplies.

I used watercolors to just paint in the yellow. Pens or colored pencils would work too, but coloring isn't really my thing.

The other colors were added in the same sort of pattern. 

Restamping the images is the hardest part. You could get around this by using a clear stamp, but since my carved ones obviously aren't clear, I had to guess and pray. I am guessing the order I stamped these in is pretty dang obvious.

The nice thing about this project though, is it actually looks better if you do miss slightly. So getting in the general vicinity is pretty good enough.

Same process more or less on the goldfish. I went for a more blended look with the oranges. Looking at this picture again, I wish I had left that lower left one exactly as it was...

...but I didn't. The blue looks nice too though. 

I did the angler fish the same as the cat, the headlumps the same as the goldfish. On the back of each postcard I lightly stamped the stamp I used on the front to add a little interest. 

And that's it. Mindless mail art that leaves your head noggin free for other noodling. 

Head Lumps

I don't get to brag about this often, but I have a remarkably unlumpy head. So unlumpy, in fact, that it's really a shame my hair is not a team player or I would keep the sides shaved. Unfortunately, when my hair gets much under an inch certain chunks of it turn a light blonde that makes me appear to have bald spots unless I rub chalk pastels in my hair, but that's another story.

I mention my lack of head lumps because this week's blog project was inspired by a swap Steph posted in the mail pals group for Artist Phrenology Charts. 

I made mine well over a week ago, but seeing her write up about the one she made resparked my interest in the whole ordeal.

As the starting point for today's project, this is the one I made for the swap.

I used an impromptu side selfie as reference to draw my own chart and painted it in gouache before using a very convoluted method of masking and x-acto knifing to fill in the little sections. It is a postcard sized piece, so I did not exactly have a lot of room to work, which is fitting since there never seems to quite be enough room in my skull for everything, anyhow. 

Since the project itself is rather personal in nature, I went for things that were symbolically important to me, but that wouldn't be weird for someone else to hang on their wall if they were so inclined. I also know there are a few people in the group who let their kids get the mail, so I decided to go for G just in case it ended up in their mailbox. 

My aim for today, instead of just making another chart, was to make a little stamp to use in my journal and probably in mail art and letters as well. A shorthand for "here's a random thought" or "this is what's on my mind today". 

I worked my design mostly off of the chart I had already drawn because I am lazy and see no reason to put the work in twice. I decided to extend the hair all the across the head and I toned down the chin because daaaaaang my chin is not that big. No idea how I missed that when I was doing the preliminary sketches. 

It occurred to me while I was tweaking the design for the stamp how much of an artistic shorthand I have developed for portraying myself. Even though this is so minimalist, and not really a great reflection of what I look like, I see it as being me because of a few quirks that show up in every drawing or doodle of myself. I think the quirks are more telling than anything I actually put as being in my head. 

The bridge of the nose (which head on I tend to draw like < > ) is because there is a running joke between my sister and I that the "family nose" is simply "broken". I broke mine when I was 3 running around the edge of a swimming pool in Las Vegas. 

Specifically using the left side of my face for profiles is because my beauty mark by my nose is on that side, as well as my eyebrow piercing and the part in my hair.  

Unkempt or bushy eyebrows (even though mine are usually in the general vicinity of "point" these days, not exactly "on point" but close enough to order takeout and have it delivered from there) are because my eyebrows are... noticeable. They wiggle around a lot and seem to make up about 70% of my facial expressions, and, when combined with well timed shrugs, 95% of my dance moves.

If I am adding color, an orange scribble suffices fine for hair, because in school a boy once tried to annoy me by telling me I wasn't a redhead because my hair was orange. I said "huh, yeah, guess so" and my hair has been orange ever since.

And that's it! That makes a me. 

After I was happy with the design (and scribbled some mess ups out in pink since I never remember to buy white out) I taped it to the window to trace the reverse. I had no choice since we're out of printer ink, but I think this is faster anyway.

Transferring with chalk was a huge fail. Way too fine of details. Chalk everywhere. 

The sharpie bleed through method always has my back though.

The biggest problem with minimalist stamps is being tidy while carving. It's damn near impossible to keep any carve marks from showing up when you stamp, so you have to make sure every single mark that might show up looks good. I did not know this when I first started carving and a lot of my early stamps looked like they were made by a maniac or someone with the patience of a gerbil on speed (they were).

Many proofs on this one. I tweaked little things each time until I figured I was as good as I was getting. I was a little disappointed with how sharp the bridge of the nose was, if someone was paying me to do this stamp I think I would have redone it. Since it is more or less a caricature of myself though, and that is something I exaggerate anyway, it isn't the end of the world.

The final stamp on a page in my journal. I sectioned the brain off and scribbled random thoughts in it. Oh the possibilities are endless. The color that could be added, the doodles and quotes and ideas and ink splatters. I can stamp ahead in my journals, write addresses in the head noggin, or put postage there... Yeah, I am going to get a lot of use out of this little lady.

Anemones

We took a spontaneous trip to our local beach earlier this week, by complete and utter luck the tide was so far out that we could see all the little critters that made their homes along the rocky pier.

I took about a million pictures and my husband made fun of me for acting like a person who had never seen the ocean before or otherwise expected to never see the ocean again. I explained that they were for inspiration. And, likely because I have about 5 writing projects going right now, I actually did use one of the photos today.

I wanted to do something with this gorgeous sea anemone. There were tons of these dudes in and near the rocks, ranging from bigger than my palm to the size of dimes. I will never get over how neat anemones are, even if I am pretty sure they are the results of the unholy union between an eldritch abomination and a baked potato.

I decided a stamp would be best suited for making an anemone. I printed out my dude in black and white, scribbled on the back with a 6B pencil and began to mark the major lines.

A half hour later and not even halfway through, I decided to use the radial symmetry to my advantage and just do half. I wish I had thought of this sooner and just done a quarter but I guess the added variety in the tendrils is nice.

Slowly carving along. I actually love carving careful lines for stamps like this, it's relaxing and I can just zone out for a while and listen to music. I scribbled with sharpie the spots that needed to be removed completely as I went because I knew the tangle of tendrils would be near impossible to decipher by the end otherwise. 

Stamp carved. I was nervous to do the proof. Usually I proof, recarve, proof, recarve about 4 or 5 times before I am happy with a stamp. 

But somehow, despite the tangled mess (or maybe because of it), I liked it as was on the first try. 

I started a background on an 11 x 17 piece of mixed media paper. Toothbrush, school watercolors, salt, paper towel dabbing. I wanted something reminiscent of sand but not so textured it would distract from the stamp.

I cut it into 6 approx. 3 3/4th by 5 inch postcards and 3 atc blanks. 

Using the "buying sponges would cut into the money I need for my tea and paint habits" method, I prepared some gouache. 

You can see in the upper left the mask I used for sponging. I stamped the image on cardstock and roughly x-actoed it out. I didn't want perfect here. 

A layer of white and light blue lightened the anemone blobs a bit.

There was so much paint on the mask I did a few envelopes just by pulling a wet brush inward. 

I tested a few ink colors for stamping. I decided blue was the most striking, although I liked all 3.

Stamped the anemone details over the painted bit. Something seemed missing... 

I rubbed some of the edges of the cards with a brown stamp pad. Maybe a little subtle, but it makes a huge difference to me. 

So I ended up with 6 postcards (which will be so dapper mailed with the new shell themed postcard rate stamps).

One diptych atc set

And as a bonus, the stamp I carved very easily doubles as a dahlia type flower which I am sure will be utilized later in the season. 

And suddenly my stupid amount of "inspiration" pics feels justified.