Art Crusade #18 - Fun With Rubber in Room 206!

If you're a little like me and you need a kick in is the a** to get yourself to try new things, then Michelle Ward's Green Pepper Press Street Team Art Crusades are for you! Hmm...Henceforth to be known as The Art Crusade. (I say a little like me because if you were just like me you'd need 2 kicks in the a**!) I have found them to be so fun and such a good incentive to step out of my box. Click on the button above to check it out!

This month, as I mentioned before, the challenge was to create your own stamps and stencils. Well, since the beginning of the month when I wrote that, it's been changed to just create your own stamps and April will be create your own stencils. And what do I say to that??? Yippee!!! Because of the change, I felt like I really had to try my hand at making a stamp. I was very reluctant. I'm not sure why, maybe I thought it would be too hard and I would get a terrible result. Well, I'm here to tell you, it is not too hard and it is a heckuva lot of fun!

Last night I went to the Room 206 3rd Friday art party; termed this month, "Fun with Rubber!" (If that doesn't get you excited, I don't know what will!) Liisa very generously went down to Daniel Smith and picked up some rubber and Speedball blades for everyone to use. (unfortunately they don't offer these items online, only in-store. But they are a great source for paint - their store brand rivals just about any other brand)

Here is what I did:

Here's how I did it:

First, I just tried out a little design. That's where I got the star stamp. I wanted to so something simple that I could draw right on the rubber without worrying about messing up. Then I took the little Speedball cutter and just cut out the outline of the star. I was going to gouge out all around the star, but went I took out the first line that I cut I decided I would like lines radiating out from the star.

Next was the hard part. I wanted to do something else, something bigger. But I didn't have any bright ideas. My original plan had been to print out some of my photoshop brushes that I really like - but I ran out of time. So I started leafing through my art journal and found this page:

(Note the note to myself at the top. Cuter than a squid? He still thinks that's a great compliment. I started this journal in March of 2006 right after I first read True Colors.)

At first I was just going to wimp out and do one bird, but then everyone at the table said they loved the look of the 3 birds standing on each other, so I decided to be brave. I pulled out a piece of card stock and started drawing and eventually ended up with this - in pencil:

Then I thought, "Well how am I going to get that on the rubber?" I had read the transfer instructions but I didn't have a copier handy and I always have difficulties with transfers anyway. I decided to try it the old fashioned way. I drew over the regular pencil with a charcoal pencil, flipped the image over onto the rubber and then rubbed the back of it with a bone folder thingy that Liisa had handy. Wow. When I lifted the paper there was a perfect transfer! (not only that, I think I could have just transferred the pencil - a few pencil lines showed up where I had missed with the charcoal)

Then I went to town with the cutters! I first outlined it shallowly with the small blade and then took out the in between parts with a larger blade. Liisa recommended I just cut off the bits I didn't need entirely to save myself the headache of trying to scoop it all out. Fine tuning it probably took the longest time. I kept inking it and stamping to see if my shaving was deep enough. I probably ended up doing that ten times. Little high spots kept popping up. (no pun intended there)

All in all, I was extraordinarily pleased with the results of this endeavor and I brought home a huge block of rubber so that I could make more. (More! More! More!)

Thank you Michelle!