Posts Tagged ‘Digital Stamp’

A couple of weeks ago I was headed to the library with my 3 year old thinking about what stamp I wanted to do next and I thought about doing a penguin with a heart snowman. When I got there a children’s nature magazine jumped off the shelf at me because of the penguin feature. When I flipped to the article there was a penguin in this pose and I thought, there THAT is my next stamp.

So I borrowed a pencil from the librarian and sketched his pose then re-drew it with my Wacom tablet later when my daughter was napping. Ephesians 3:8 immediately came to mind as the perfect verse. I think this stamp would be great for Valentines day, Easter, encouragement, or a simple I love you.

The blue snow and brown hounds-tooth papers are Basic Grey and the white embossed swirly paper was sold by the sheet at Michaels. I bought it for my Hawaii album and will have to go grab a few more sheets.

Coloring this stamp was more of a challenge for me than drawing it! Black and white subjects like Penguins and snow are not the easiest thing to master. I printed the stamp 4 up and played with each element until I achieved a look I was happy with then brought it all together in the final illustration. I used Copics and only have one “000? color, so everything was too saturated and too hard to blend out to white. So, I used a technique I learned from Marianne in my Copic certification class. I have a water brush filled with Copic’s blending solution and I used sort of a water color technique, blending my colors on a Ranger craft mat. This is how I did the hearts, wind, sky, rocks and snow.

For the penguin I used all 5 grey markers. On the wings I “flicked” feather like strokes starting with the lightest grey and working my way up going darker as I went. Then I colored black onto my Ranger mat and used the blender solution water brush to dilute it. I was pleased with the feathery edge that it produced as long as I kept my brush as dry as possible while still loaded with color.

The wind is accented with Adirondack Pearl paint and I swirled stickles on the heart snowman. Finally, I distressed the edge of all the layers with Tim Holtz’s Old Paper Distress Ink. Then I used his Black soot on the very edges so that the black from the drawing was carried through.

This is a continuation of my Song of Solomon Valentines digital stamp creations. There are three now, so I guess I can call it a “digital stamp set.” While I was drawing the Trapeze artists I was not sure what verse I would use, but when I read Song of Solomon 3:4 I knew it was meant to be!

I wanted the card to have an antiqued and distressed feel and chose a subdued and earthy palette of Copic markers. I made every attempt to make it as masculine as possible. After distressing the artwork with Tim Hotz’s “Old Paper” ink I inked the edge with “Walnut Stain” and then applied Walnut Stain Distress Stickles! Wow, what a fun way to add bling in a manly fashion!

Deciding on an embellishment to add some dimension was a little more challenging. My husband suggested that I restrain myself from the urge to add flowers when I was showing him some Grungeboard flowers. So I settled on Grungeboard initials. Cricut users can get the same effect by cutting letters out of chipboard. I painted the “n” and “h” with Antique Bronze Distress Crackle Paint. After it dried I stamped a zebra pattern on the letters with Fired Brick Distress Crackle paint. I like that it sort of looks like flames. The ampersand was painted with Tarnished Brass Distress Crackle Paint then I stamped it with a Cheetah pattern. After distressing the letters with Walnut Stain I applied Scattered Straw Distress Stickles to the ampersand.

I think the animal prints tied very nicely with the Circus themed illustration. I was striving for a sensually romantic feel in the illustration and was happy to achieve sort of an underlying “wild at heart” theme for the musclebound lover.

The striped paper is from Creative Memories 2007 Limited Edition Valentines kit. It has a beautiful distessed brown pallet accented by peach, mauve and white. Read on if you’d like to win this paper kit.

I’d like to see how some other people would use this digital stamp in a Valentines (or other romantic) card. So, I decided to host an impromptu single event design team. If you like this design and would like to be considered for participation then leave me a comment. I will pick up to 5 people, who respond here or to my message on the Cricut board, to be on my special Valentines event team.

You will have 5 days to design a card and post it on your blog with a link back to my site mentioning the contest.

TERMS:

1. You can use the digital stamp to make your own cards as long as it is not for commercial gain
2. And you cannot enter anything using my pre-release stamp design into another contest or publication.
3. You will not email it or make it otherwise electronically available to anyone else.
4. You must have a blog to participate.
5. If you post your card on a messageboard you must link back to my blog and mention the contest.
6. I will have the right to use your card design in the event I decide to promote my stamp commercially, linking to your blog as the card designer.

The chosen 5 will “win” my first pre-release stamp. And one of the 5 will be selected as the winner of my contest. The winner will receive the beautiful special edition Creative Memories Valentines 8?  kit and very cute set of acrylic valentines stamps. I will be getting my friends and family to give me input on who to choose.

PLUS, I will pick a winner from the volunteers to receive a second set of valentines stamps. So everyone who expresses interest has a chance to win a prize, even if you are not chosen for the design team.

Thanks to those who have already expressed interest, I’m hoping to get a little more awareness now that I’ve created my own version of the card. I plan to pick the team late Monday.