Festive Ferrets

I wanted to do something new and actually make my own Christmas cards. I woefully underestimated how many I wanted to send and need to make another batch, but here's my design and process.

I've done a lot of fiddling with stencils lately and feeling ambitious I went for a 5 part stencil. The most I have ever done successfully before is 3.

It started with this sketch of a ferret in a santa hat I just kinda woke up to. I leave myself notes when I am half asleep a lot, usually they are a lot less clear.

Traced the different layers onto bits of plastic divider. No joke, this is my go to for stencils, it is so cheap and holds up so well.

Carefully (ha, not really, more like maniacally) cut out the details for each stencil.

Also spent 75 years cutting down postcard size bits of paper. I was not about to make envelopes and, to be honest, saving a few bucks on postage sounded nice too.

Layer one, dark brown. I brushed the acrylics on going for a more flat look.

Tan.

There was a white layer then a red layer. I missed getting a pic of the white because it really wasn't that exciting.

And finally, layer five, the black details. If I do make another batch, I am definitely doing the first four layers and drawing the black parts on with a sharpie by hand. The details were just a little too fine and the acrylic a little too blobby. But there's a 75% chance anyone I missed the first batch is just getting a store bought card or forgotten because I am pretty much the worst at sending out cards for any occasion and the fact I got 20 out is nothing short of a Christmas miracle.

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.

Let's Jam

Steph and I decided to do a bit of a postcard jam between us. We've done a few collabs together, including some absolutely fantastic artbooks (which, she thankfully blogged about because I was not on the blog train yet). It's always fun to work with her because our styles are so different. We overlap at mixed media with her super powers extending to collage and mine extending to uh, drawings of half naked ladies and lizards. You heard it here, folks, that is the spectrum of art.

Anyhow, setting out to make backgrounds I wanted to do something she will hopefully be excited to work on. I thought: bold colors, lots of layers, repetition, abstract. 

11 x 14 inch mixed media paper. I started off with a dodgeball pattern in a tasty rainbow of gelato sticks. The hashmarks are totally an homage to the fact she uses them on everything.

I then promptly destroyed the hashmarks. I blended the gelatos using the tea bag from my tea because I was too lazy to get up care deeply about recycling and reusing materials.

Flowers stenciled on in black. The stencil was made for my mother's day cards this year and was its own ordeal.

More stenciling! Some white acrylic sponged on over a torn strip of paper.

I added a few more layers during a phone call (speaker phone is a godsend) and forgot to photograph them, but I cut a circle out of paper and sponged around that with white and then used black and grey to redefine some of the original flowers. After those layers dried, I coated everything with gloss varnish and sprinkled a tiny bit of charcoal glitter over the top. I sponged the glitter lightly to make sure it was embedded in the varnish and will hopefully not emigrate to Steph's floor.

I ended up with these 6 roughly 4 x 5 1/2 backgrounds to send her way. I am really happy with how they ended up looking and excited to see what she does with them. Unfortunately, I was reminded, yet again, that gelatos do not play well with, um, any other art supply. The paint and varnish are both fairly prone to peeling because of this and they got a tiny bit distressed during trimming. I imagine by the time Steph is done with them though, they'll be sturdy enough to survive being hoarded forever mailing into the world.

Sketch to Stencil

For some unknowable reason, a couple weeks ago I pulled out an old sketchbook, tore out some dozen old pages of halfhearted sketches and notes to self and just painted for the hell of it. I have not kept any sort of sketchbook or art journal for ages, but I guess that's a thing I do now.

My first spring back into doing more art to art was this watercolor.

Portraiture, especially of women, has always been my pretty much favorite. I liked the composition of this a lot and wanted to do something more with it. I considered carving her into a stamp, but I wanted to keep the image fairly flat, she's too sleek for a lot of texture to slip in but not quite simple enough to pull off without some sort of shading. So I decided as a true return to form, I would make a stencil. 

I'm lazy, so the stencil process begins with three photocopies roughly mounted to some mixed media paper. 

Stencil carving in multiple parts is fiddly, but pretty easy. On one copy I cut out everything I wanted red (lips and background) copy two cut out all the grey and three the black. When I got to the black I wanted to punch myself for not thinking through how much of a pain in the ass the slits in the middle of the dress were going to be. I had to alter the design a bit due to the physics of paper having to be attached to stay together.                     

Layer one, just the reds. 

Plus layer two.

Plus layer three. At first I was going with watercolor, but the first water color black didn't look great so I did an ink pad on the other. I liked the ink pad a lot better for the black.

I did a set with ink pads for the pink and black (fun fact, I don't own a red ink pad...) The grey on the far left is watercolor, the other two are done with a kid's airbrush. I like both ways.                 

                 

This stencil is destined to be the mascot for a zine series I am working on (I have the writing done for a handful of them, just need to illustrate) and will likely find her way into a lot of mail boxes on postcards. 

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. 

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.