The Inky Spinnery

Too busy to post anything the last couple of days.

I've been playing with my new speedball inks and finding them a bit frustrating. They dry so fast! Having never done this before I expected to be able to make about 10 prints at a time. It's more like three! I'm back and forth to the sink to wash the stamps, plate and brayer. Then have to start over.

Above is the very first one that came out halfway decent. You can see the image is a bit thin on the right hand side. So this is something I'm going to have to practice.

Actually this is one of my first carvings and the first time I've been able to print it! It's carved on a piece of 3" x 4" "stuff" I found on a shelf at a craft store about two years ago. It must have been sitting on the shelf for a long time because it wasn't the best quality in the world. The check out lady let me have it at a discount. When I came to ink it with the rubberstamp pad the ink wouldn't stick to parts of it. I tried and tried. Washed it in soap and water, cleaned it with stamp cleaner, nothing worked. So it was thrown in a box and forgotten about. It was quite a thrill finally see it printed.

This afternoon was spent working on the Carving Consortium First Day Cover swap. I have about 7 out of the 18 envelopes printed and some of the hand coloring done. Will post pictures when they are all finished.

I still haven't come up with anything for the Illustration Friday theme "fragile" yet. The First Day Cover has a deadline so that's my primary concern right now. There are a couple of ideas rattling around in my mind though. I just might manage to get something submitted before Friday.