Back to work

I like to think things are getting back to normal at our house. It has been over one month since Baby Milo left us for the Rainbow Bridge, and although we miss him so much, we are doing ok. Last night hubby got out old video tapes from at least 10 years ago and seeing all of our baby kitties was such a treat. Seeing what we looked like was quite a hoot, also. Me with long, long hair and him with short, short hair. How funny.

We went, Friday, to check out the local strawberry festival that is an annual fund raiser in our area and had a shortcake and a sundae. That was yummy. On Saturday, we did the flea market and only came away with one record album and 3 tomatoes. Lots of sunshine and walking made it worthwhile, though.

Last week, one of my projects was hand carving a "portrait stamp". Hubbs said it looks like a lemur, but it is supposed to be a version of the avatar that you see in my profile. I had to carve it twice, because I forgot to reverse it. I always do that. Also, I forgot to leave the eyes on the first one.


I wanted the stamp to be sturdy and easy to use, so I took a purchased stamp that I never use and removed the stamp from it. I, then stamped the image of the hand-carved stamp onto the area where I had removed the other stamp, put a piece of packing tape on it and then glued the hand-carved stamp to the wooden block. It looks just like the real thing. I had never used material made for carving stamps, only erasers. This is so much softer and easier to carve. The thing is, the carving material was so much thicker than I am used to, so I sliced it in half, just to get the hang of carving it, next time I will use the entire piece.





I also decided to use it in the piece that I will be submitting for our next art show at the library. It is a collaboration, using the theme "Of Goth and Strange" and was to be done using a book cover as the support. Here is a sneak preview, see what you think.


As you can see, I used the Barbie head that I cut in half last month and altered. I also used several masks that I have sculpted in the past, I decided that some rubber Madonna bracelets made a good frame for the masks and a rubber snake, painted white, adds (I hope) some texture and interest. I printed out some personal remarks and pasted them down. I don't know if it qualifies for "goth", but the "strange" part was not a problem.

Well, that's all for now. It's a beautiful day today, so I just might go back out on the deck and take it easy. That is, if that territorial bumble bee doesn't get an attitude. We'll see. Later folks, enjoy the rest of your weekend and don't forget to do your art!