30 days of Carving

I’m reading Finding Your own Visual Language by Jane Dunnewold, Claire Benn and Leslie Morgan, and one of the exercises is to carve a stamp for 30 days. I thought, “hey, I like to carve stamps . . .” and I’ve been feeling like I need to find some sort of an art “thing” that I can commit to for awhile. I’ve been having trouble coming up with some sort of a schedule or ritual that I can stick to, including working in my journal (although I have been pretty food about writing every morning . . . almost). I thought this might be an artistic baby step. Other than carving a stamp every day, and posting it, I don’t want to have any rules about the size, or kind or anything.

So, I started last night. Late last night. By the time I got to it, I really needed to just go to bed. But I didn’t want to put it off until the next day because I knew that then the next day would become the next day, and then the next day. So, right before I went to bed, I chose the eraser I wanted to use, traced around it in my sketch book several times to give me an area to work in, then did several very fast sketches. I made a copy of the one I wanted to use, then transferred it using a chartpak blender marker. Sometimes transferring images (printed on a laser copier or a toner copier) onto an eraser work great using a blender marker, and sometimes they don’t. It all has to do with the eraser. To complicate things, the eraser was a dark green, so I couldn’t see the image that well. I decided to try again tracing over it onto tissue paper with a pencil, then transfer it that way. It worked better, but same problem with the dark eraser. But it was enough to guide me. I quickly carved away, then tested it and carved some more. I put it away for the night, but as I slept on it, I thought I’d clean it up a little in the morning to make it resemble my initial sketch more. And here’s what I came up with.

This is a great start to my 30-days of carving. I’ve also been wanting to get back into drawing because I haven’t done it in many, many years. I feel if I can hone my very rusty drawing skills, it will help the rest of my artwork. I also want to be better at sketching out my ideas. I pulled out Danny Gregory’s book The Creative License: Giving Yourself Permission to be the Artist that You Truly Are, and was reminded about doing blind contour drawings, where you draw without looking. I love doing those, even though I’m really bad at them. I love the wonky look. Right before going to bed, I did 2 on the same page that ended up overlapping each other. I’ll definitely practice some more!

For my sketch book, I’m using Strathmore’s spiral bound Visual Journal. Awhile back they sent me several to try out. They come in different sizes, and have different heavy-weight papers available. I’m using the 5.5″ x 8″ with 100 lb Bristol paper. I thought since I’m trying to get back into sketching, this would be a good size to throw into my back pack or carry with me.

Here are my other posts for this project.