RedBarn Studios

A few months ago I was one of 4 who volunteered to do a demo for my local quilt guild. That night the guild (about 45 members) was divided into groups, with each group traveling to different demo tables. Each person doing a demo had about 6 or 7 minutes to talk really, really fast about their technique so there was only so much I could demonstrate.

Well….a few of them wanted MORE!  The Graybarn Girls (isn’t that a cool name)  invited me to come to one of their meeting to do a more advanced workshop with them, this Saturday, the 17th as a matter of fact. I was so excited.  Stamp carving is fairly easy to do once you get the hang of it and know the tips for clean carving.

This year I intend (my word for the year remember?) to teach more workshops and have been working on a couple of new workshops that I will be offering but more on that in a later post. To that end, I’ve created a stamp carving workshop called ” Creating Personal Imagery Through Stamp Carving“. I feel that working with images that have personal meaning to you makes your artwork more meaningful.

So with the girls,we will be exploring a little bit more about the images that connect with us and hopefully carving a of few of these images for use later in the workshop project, an imagery journal.

If you and your group are interested in learning how to carve stamps consider booking me for a workshop  I would love to help you along in your art journey. (BTW, I don’t mind traveling but airfare is up to you…smile).

BTW, remember I said I wanted to carve my very own alphabet…take a look below at these before and after shots.

I have a file full of ideas for new stamps. Now I’m certainly not into insects but one image that resonates with me are dragonflies. Usually when I use them in my work they represent a transformation to me. I’ve long had an idea for a dragonfly stamp….but I’m keeping it to myself a little while longer.

See ya next time “in the Hayloft”,

Tags: Art, journals, mixed media, stamp carving, teaching, workshops/presentations by k grace howes
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I love to carve my own rubber stamps.  I have some great commercial stamps in my stamp drawer but it’s so very cool to be able to draw something, carve it and stamp right away with it. I have a small notebook full of ideas for stamps to carve.

In a much earlier post I wrote about how much I love learning new words (has been a favorite pastime of mine since I was a young girl but heck if I can explain it). Well now I carve words.  The last few stamps I’ve carved have been words that have an impact or significant meaning to me and others.

Remember this journal I made earlier this year? First I stamped the word with foil adhesive onto my jounal then ironed gold foil onto the word.

This next stamp I just finished carving over the holidays so I have yet to use it but love the idea behind it. There’s much you can do with that one.

Another word that’s caught my eye is ” FRAGILE“  but for this one I need to find the fight font to use to denote the meaning of the word.

I have now decided I want to carve my own alphabet so I am looking for the right font with a mix of caps and lower case letters. I keep looking at the commercial alphabet sets but have yet to find one that resonates with me.

Here’s a mission for you, what other words should I carve to use in my art? Let me here your ideas.

See ya next time “In the Hayloft”,

Tags: Art, monday posts, patterns, stamp carving, surface design by k grace howes
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