Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Linoleum Stamp Part 1.

Hi there! I made a new linoleum carving that I stamped onto a simple signature book that ANYONE can make. It's very easy! You can do it, too :)

First, you always start with a drawing. I drew this guy:
Next, you find yourself a piece of tracing paper, and trace away:



From this point, what I like to do is place this drawing pencil side down onto a block of linoleum. To transfer the image, simply draw over the backside of the drawing... as in this picture:


Once you've transferred, you can use a permanent marker to make sure your lines stay put.
Now the FUN part, carving!! Be sure to use a proper carving tool, such as a Speedball carving tool (which has a bunch of different cutter sizes):


Once I finish carving, as you have probably noticed, I eventually do away with those extra little designs on the outside of the triangle. I wasn't feelin' it, but it's ok, because you just carve it away. Just be careful, it's VERY easy to mistakenly carve something you don't mean to!!

For this print I will use Speedball block ink.
You can use a small brayer for this. I roll the ink onto a piece of tracing paper laid onto another piece of paper. You want to have enough ink on the brayer so that it has this sort of textured look to it:

Roll up your carving, ensuring it has the same textured look. Then, press down firmly onto paper.

So here's what my finished carving looks like (I even cut the block down) and a test stamp to see if I liked it.


Now that the image is established, we can move onto making the signature book. To be continued..

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Happy Holidays!

Well, hello there

I have been embroidering my geometric designs onto some awesome vintage fabrics my sister gave me. They are so much fun to make!



The last one was influenced by a book of Polish paper cutting designs. It's an owl!

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Autumn inspiration..

My real life camera is a goner, but I've been blessed with an iPhone Hisptamatic instead! Anyone who uses the Hisptamatic knows the amazing, dreamy photos it takes. So here is my inspiration as of late, thanks to my sweet new camera on my new phone:






Just wanted to share my little world..

Shirts Part Two...


It's been a while.. I'd like to start this off where I left off...



Well to begin, the camera I used to take all the "in progress" pictures of the band t-shirts somehow stopped working properly.. so, bye bye pictures that once were and never will be again. I do, however, have a select few that made it onto my computer as well as some stickers I created on Photoshop.

I have little Photoshop knowledge, but you only need a little to make images screen print friendly. It's all about the texture if you want to use real photographs.
























The t-shirts were all purchased at a local Salvation Army. It was really fun to do it this way because each shirt had it's own special, silly story to tell. Definitely a great band, and each of the members are interesting characters which I hoped to portray.

This is what I drew to be exposed on the screen using a stabilo pencil on vellum:















And here are a few stickers I played around on Photoshop with:



























































I'd like to add, this was a fun project for me in that it was a good learning experience. I silkscreened around 55 shirts in 55 different ways. I'm ready to tackle some new projects using what I've learned.

So this was way back from March, and now it's almost Thanksgiving. Those shirts feel like a decade of distance from today! Unfortunately for me, that camera is done for, BUT I did just get an iPhone and have become a Hipstamatic junkie, HELP!! :)