Carving Your Own Stamps

After purchasing some goodies last summer, I've finally gotten around to carving up some home made stamps. ( Of course I was heavily influenced by one of my fave artists, the amazingly talented Geninne Zlatkis, and her new book on stamp carving, check her book out on Amazon!) 

Soooo having a few semesters worth of printmaking under my belt during University, I purchased some carving blocks online (Apparently the ones I bought here, made by Staedtler, isn't available any more. Too bad because they are INSANELY easy to carve... yup... says right on the pack, "Cuts "like butter", and I couldn't agree more.) I also had a lovely Colorbox stamping ink set with a wide variety of colors in my Christmas stocking last year, so along with my little carving set I purchased at Walmart, I am ready to ROLL! :-D

So I started off with simply drawing out what I planned on carving. I wanted to make a flower set, so here is a rose stamp that I started. 

I started by using the small V shaped tip that came with my carving set to cut out the lines that I drew. Remember that whatever you carve out will remain white when stamped.

After the lines were carved I added a few more details to it, and cut away what was around the drawing. Now we're ready to stamp! I love this Colorbox set my hubby gave me, you can detach what color you want and ink up your individual stamp with. Nifty!

So here is the result with a few other flowers I carved and stamped. You can use these for scrapbooking, or making your own cards, heck, why not make a personal stamp for using on the backs of your envelopes! Ooo! Schnazzy! :-)

Happy stamping!
Lori

Happy birthday tractor!

This is a little gift I did up for my baby boy for his Daddy on the weekend as a birthday gift. I used his foot to stamp on paper and paper collaged the rest of the image to make it into a cute little tractor! Awww! I saw this idea on pinterest and HAD to try it. It's so simple to do and will be cherished FOREVER. I think even Daddy teared up a bit. ;-) (What a wuss hey? Hehe!)

Enjoy!
Lori

Tundra Blueberries.

I painted this blueberry picture for a local art project. These aren't just blueberries, they are TUNDRA blueberries (Just to prove how north we really live, right?) and they are the sweetest most flavourful blueberries I have ever eaten. Not biased... honest! ;-)

Painted with acrylics on canvas board.

Enjoy!
Lori

Awesome vintage "how-to-draw" book archive!

I was just browsing through Pinterest ( I joined last week... what an amazing time suck!) and I was looking up projects for the students in my art classes and lookie what I found! This AMAZING archive of how-to-draw all kinds of stuff published in 1913 by E. G. Lutz. Its an old book, but hey, drawing never gets old, and especially tricks on how to draw subjects more easily. PLEASE use this and share with your kids/students. Its a great reference resource. Here are a few images from the book. :)

Enjoy!

Lori

Personal Crest

Since I have been an aide to the art teachers here in my old highschool for the last month or so, I have been trying to participate with the kids projects to get them inspired. A few weeks ago Ms. Thomas (Not me, the art teacher here... and YES we're related of course. lol ) suggested to the kids that they create a personal crest that represents themselves. I thought it was a great idea! It's personal, and when it comes to teenagers, they are very "into" themselves and their generation. So here is my crest! The owl represents my favourite animal, of course it holds a paintbrush and palette to represent my passion and career, the daisies are my fave flower and the first thing I learned how to draw, the waves represent my love of the ocean and my home, and the crest colours are my fave colours: aqua and green. Yay! If you are a teacher I would highly suggest doing this as a class project. It was fun, and even thought it was about me, it was surprisingly challenging. I even got Ms. Thomas and the sub. teacher, Gail to do one as well. Hehe!

Enjoy!
Lori
PS: This reminded me of doodling in class wayyyyy back when. LOVED THE FEELING! :D

Decorating with Paper!

I finally get to show you what I did with my little guys room. Here are a few of the things I've done, and were done for me to create his owl-inspired nursery.

First off, here is a small paper collage that I created to go inside as the face for a clock that was given to me for Clark at my baby shower. The original face of the clock had a badly drawn hippo, and it kinda clashed with the owl theme. SO... I took the paper face out, made a template on some scrapbooking paper, and did a little Daddy owl and baby flying a kite together! Cute right? You can totally do this with any old or cheap clock that needs a facelift. (*Snorts* Get it? Facelift! :-D)

Here are a few shadow boxes I had floating around that I picked up at the Dollar Store a few summers ago. So I made an "ABC" set of 3 paper collages to go above Clark's dresser.

Here is the artwork that I made to go over Clark's crib. I saw this idea on Martha Stewart and had to try it for myself. I used scrapbook paper and mod podge to plaster it to the pieces of plywood that I had my father cut for me. I would like to try making more of these in the future. :-)

Annnnd last but not least, here is the baby blanket that my Aunt Eva made for his crib. She used one of my paper collages as the pattern. Isn't it gorgeous? I really need to learn how to sew.


Enjoy!
Lori

Illustration Friday: Wild!

I have never posted this image on here but I found it today and thought it was perfect for this weeks Illustration Friday entry! (And a good way to get me back into posting on there as well.:D) So here is my wild mermaid.

Drawn on paper, coloured with colouring pencils and inked.

Enjoy!
Lori