Fire Rats for the New Year

Process, process, this was such an uphill climb. I wanted to make something for the Chinese New Year and I don't know why I had this compulsion. Maybe because I felt I owe rats something, having experimented on them in my youth. I rescued our control group and o! my wonderful parents, as I remember all the critters we housed at
various times.

Or is it my longing for fire. for glassmaking, for what fire enabled me to do. I have yet to figure out how to render fire, how i will add it to the stamped image.

I began by looking at rat pictures. Then I drew several.
But these didn't become the stamp, mainly because the stamps were being created for ATCs and I couldn't think the image small enough, though i did scan them in and shrink them to ATC size......

Finally, a couple came to me to be translated from pencil to Mastercarve and then carved.

 I was surprised that all I had to do was rub the image on the mastercarve and it transferred. Mastercarve is not my favorite material but this ease of transfer is something I will have to remember.

Rescued Failure

Conquest and victory are a mosaic composed of defeats. So this failed carving was rethought and I've happily made postcards... another take on this gorgeous Autumn and autmuns past.

I've printed on different media and used markers on one, a surprise to me and on the other two, colored pencils....

Angel Carved

I've carved two angels for the Angel swap. One I like better than the other. It's the one I creaed to be a picture image and then decided to carve. The other I drew in an effort to make an angel, inpsired by the winged cracked egg--- I still want to do that--- of RahXephon.

Anyway, I decided that Angel 2 should be my Holiday Card offering to my family of friends and sought window cards for her. I found none for a long time and finally bought the ones at Walmart.... I actually first sought window cards
for ATCs.

Anyway these window cards for wedding pix, while not the most compelling of frames, does how the Angel, well. And the Angel, p[rinted on the photo paper I got with the printer and never used, printed glossily and easily, leaving an impression far more easily than on the watercolor paper.... hmmm....