Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:46 — 95.1MB) | Embed
I’m delighted to bring you another episode of the Adventures in Arting Podcast! Today’s podcast features chatter about Carve December and the Blogiversary. Here are the links I promised:
- My Missing Quilt: LINK
- The Creative JumpStart Visual Interview (you can still sign up HERE):
- And all of the #CarveDecember goodness that I promised:
Nicole Maki:
CarveDecember is my favorite challenge of the year. It is a great opportunity to grow as an artist as I find the act of completing thirty-one stamps improves my carving and the way I think about stamp design. Working on a similar project each day helps to hone my individual style. It also provides time to work through the more difficult technical aspects of stamp carving – for me that is visualizing what to cut away and what to keep in order to ensure the most impact.
This year I challenged myself to spend the month making original characters, each with a one sentence back story. By giving the characters some context, for example, “Grady is prone to rearranging things when anxious.” people were able to relate to my stamps personally and say, “I’m a Grady too”.
One of my favorite things about CarveDecember is the amazing community Julie has created. The support really helped me push through on those too-busy days of December and the constant influx of inspiration has a collaborative effect as people see a stamp, make it their own and then another person uses that new image as a starting point for their stamps. This steady stream of great ideas provides a fertile environment for art to grow.
Gerald’s tiny umbrella wasn’t the strangest thing about him:
Grady is prone to rearranging things when anxious:
Meredith’s favorite way to relax is sparring at the local mixed martial arts club.
Pearl’s passions include politics, hand fans, and umbrellas:
Marta Harvey:
About 10 years ago I was creating and trading a lot of ATCs (Artist Trading Cards), and having a wonderful time learning new techniques. My approach was to learn, practice, then put my spin on it. My ATCs were therefore always changing, as I was always looking for something different to try.
After looking at M. C. Escher’s optical illusions book one day, I decided I was going to try a tessellation of my own. Hah! Easier said than done! It took me a few days (if I remember correctly), fiddling with sketches, grids, rulers, tracing paper, etc. (all hand-drawn), but I finally came up with a tessellation.
You can see it is far from perfect, and completely hand drawn (every bird and butterfly are different). A couple of people got ATCs with this tessellation, but it was a lot of work, so I moved on to other things.
Around the same time, I started learning about hand-carving from Gloria Page’s book “Art Stamping Workshop”. I started carving stamps I could embellish with watercolors and pen & ink and create different ATCs with. I loved creating my own stamps and using them in different ways. Eventually I got into into continuous pattern stamps and tiles, but it wasn’t until I got Julie’s book “Carve Stamp Play” a couple of year ago, that I got the idea of creating tessellations again.
This time I went online to see what I could find about creating tessellations. I found a site where you could create your own tessellation. I created a very rudimentary shape (all straight lines), and then filled in the details to create these carved fish stamps:
Off and on since then, I have been looking through tessellation sites and playing around with creating my own. When Julie’s #CarveDecember came around this year, I decided to carve a couple of those tessellations I had already created, so I could play with the prints.
It was so much fun, I just couldn’t stop! So here are some of the ones created for #CarveDecember 2016.
How do I do it? I basically play with the tessellations until they remind me of something – sort of like seeing all kinds of wonderful images in the clouds. Then, it is just a matter of filling in the tessellated shape (tile) with what you imagined. No math, no fuss… just use your imagination.
Marta’s Shop, and Marta has a tessellation stamp tutorial HERE.
Andie Mayr from regnitzflimmern:
As I’m a passionate (obsessed?) stamp carver, it’s a matter of honour to take part in #CarveDecember. Not only to just carve another stamp, but to make it a daily ritual, a daily time-for-myself, one relaxing and quiet moment during the busy December days. This year I was mainly going with wintery stars, snowflakes and ice blossoms. A very addictive theme. You are tempted to do one more and one more and one more… I just love the way how the multiple and different ideas of all the participants are so varied – each one in its own style and yet somehow linked with each other. It’s a pool of endless creativity and inspiration. Thank you to Julie for doing this inspiring challenge and to everyone who played along. I already have loads of ideas for 2017…
Find Andie online: www.regnitzflimmern.de
Rowan Sivyer:
I love Carve December!
Stamp carving is such instant gratification – you can doodle something and 10 minutes later have an image that you can use time and time again.
The best part about Carve December is the community aspect and the co-generation of ideas. Being a working artist can sometimes be a lonely pursuit but having a challenge like Carve December allows you to try new ideas as well as borrow and expand upon the ideas of others in a truly positive and rewarding way.
And last but not least, my final #CarveDecember stamps:
There’s a video for the half circles above. Find it HERE.
You can watch the printing of this black and white tag HERE.
And on the final day, I put them all together (plus a few extras) to make this:
If you would like to buy a print (or a pillow or a clock or a phone case or a t-shirt or more) of this image, you can do so in my Society6 Store.
There’s currently a promotion running through January 8 at midnight PST for 15% off and FREE worldwide shipping! You *MUST* click THIS LINK in order to get the deal! Also, the 15% off is on EVERYTHING in my Society6 store, not just this particular design. Enjoy! 
Thanks for stopping by!
Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.