BACK AT DAY CAMP

OK! Going back to that little day-long Art-o-Rama with High School Debbie and her friends, I guess I should probably share some of what I did there.

I started the day trying to do another of my crazy, color-mad riffs based on a photograph of one of the Muses -- this time, a snap taken of Fiber Woman at her 60th birthday celebration. By lunchtime, however, I was extremely frustrated for, though I did a pretty good job of capturing the sparkle of patio lights (yea Stickles glitter paint!)...

No, she doesn't really have six fingers. That was a slip up on my part.

I just couldn't come anywhere close to capturing the sparkle that is our little buddy Fiber Woman!

Sooooo, after lunch I decided to try something completely different. The final project in Kate Crane's section of my 21 Secrets class involves some stamp carving. If you recall, I carved that one crazy owl stamp when I first got my carving equipment back around Christmastime, but then got distracted by other stuff and never did anything else. Luckily, I had thrown in those supplies at the last minute, when packing up that morning, so I started with a very simple leaf stamp...

then tried one with some scallops...

and finally moved on to a, well, I don't know what you would call this. A Stripey Bar?

By then I had discovered, not only that stamp-carving is much easier than you'd think, but also that there is something rather sensual and addictive about the way that linoleum cutter's blade oozes its way through the buttery-soft rubber. Instead of unpacking and putting away my mess when I got home, I went straight back to carving. I just couldn't stop!

OK, that face needs a redo, as it's a bit more difficult to carve away all the skin, leaving only the outline of a nose or an eye, than it is to do the reverse! So what's up next on my stamp-carving agenda? Well, how about a stamp of our little house on the hill? Maybe something kinda like this?