Postcards: Not a Lorde Reference

As you must be quite familiar with at this point, I've been messing about with layering stamps over other inks.  I've done it again here.

First, a color stripe, with some scratched in symbols for texture.

Then the stamps!

Postcards: Stamp Experiments to the Moon

Requests: they're like inspiration, sort of.  Sometimes.

I was playing around with layering, and posted the results on Facebook.

A friend of mine said "..the crab and moon are amazinggg."  That's all it took for me to get to work; I was looking for an excuse to play with my stamps.

First up, let's complicate that background!

Then add the stamps of interest.

Postcards: Dipping My Toes in the Pool of Complexity

When I can produce something like this reliably, I will have accomplished an artistic goal.

First I dirtied up the postcard, and used some stamps.  This was just to created a non-white card; I was comfortable with these elements potentially being completely covered by the end of the design.

I tore out a bit of map to line the bottom of the card.  I specifically wanted that torn paper look along the top edge.

Look, a cool dude.

I took this single graphic and chopped it up to have related elements spread around the composition.

From there to assembly!

Postcards: Living The Dream process

Postcards: Whoops

Did you know I've scanned over one thousand items?  Did you also know that passing one thousand resets the way my scanning program numbers it's files?  No?  Then we both learned something.

My files are a bit of a mess; until I get it all sorted out, here are three of my latest postcards.  Each of these fulfilled a postcard debt.  There might be process photos of these later, but there also might not.

Postcards: Windows to the Sea

I was shocked to discover that I did not take any process photos for these two cards.  Perhaps I was feeling a bit overdone on the tape and paint process.  Perhaps I have merely misplaced those pictures.  In either case, here are two cards that I hope are reminiscent of looking thru a window into water.

Postcards: For Neal

You know the drill on this series.

Yeah, I know, this is not a print.  The pencil marks are more of a weathering element than an official printer's mark.

Postcards: Experimenting

Just learning about stamps.

Postcards: A Reply for Pam

Pam sent me a very nice card that she colored, encouraging me to transform anger into energy.  You know me; I found the wording to be dangerously unspecific.  Pam and I work together though, so I interpreted her card to be a call to turn my anger into productive and constructive energy. And so on to my reply card! 

I taped it up, and started throwing down ink washes.

Then I used my fish and lobster stamps.  The fish I used with a bronze ink.

Once again, I wanted to find a way to use this postage stamp.  I think it adds an interesting little bit of implied history.  Carley does not agree, and so the postage stamp was abandoned.

Postcards: The Fish Stamp

You will just have to believe me that it looks better in person.

I bought this fish stamp with some silver and bronze inks, and just started playing around.  The stamp is a great pairing with metallic inks, and I like the pattern I was able to develop with it.  I do not like, however, these stupid inks that do not dry.  Had I done any research, I would have discovered that many many artists have thrown away their Colorbox inks after discovering they don't dry.  Numerous forums with members panicked by the discovery that the cards they stamped the day before are as smudge-able as the moment they were stamped.  I ended up baking this card in the oven to get it to dry out.  Not practical. I now know Ranger Archival Inks are the way to go.

Postcards to Texas.

Had this one sitting around, waiting for an occasion.  This occasion was Maren moving to Texas, and me not having enough time to make her a custom card.

Stamps and tattoos!

I am still trying to find my style, but I think I like stamps.  Or want to use them.  Or want you to think that I used one.  Or type as a stamp.  Ornamentation.  Working towards more complexity.  Or something.

I perused the stamps available at a craft, and could not find anything inspiring.  Even when I first found the camera, I was not going to buy it.  But then I saw the crown, and held it above the camera.  I felt I need them as a pair.  I keep playing with them as a pair.

I think of them as a tattoo.  Or a signature.  I am not sure.  But I am not done with them.