The Gift of Stamps

Closer look of the actual carved stamp (1 of 3) 

These are finally done, and the recipient which is my friend Kyle Ankney, knew they'd be late for his Christmas gift. Which if you don't know him you can find him on Twitter, and Youtube. These homemade stamps very much describe him as a person, since he will be the first to admit/joke that he is an Elitest, likes pretty things, and would love to pound a denied stamp on any piece of paper in metallic gold ink. He also complains that he has horrible handwriting, so I made him a set of stamps that will look the exact way he wants, every time. Plus side is he also loves them, so the gift was successful!

Denied is upside down, but here is all the respective stamps in gold ink. 

 Anyway, onto the process. Everything here is handmade except for the knobs on top. Those I just bought unfinished cabinet door handles and glued them on with E6000 glue. If you don't know what that is, it's industrial strength glue to be used on pretty much any medium. Those handles won't be going anywhere. The rubber is just the typical wood block print rubber, but the softer kind. I just cut it with a knife to the sizes I wanted, drew on my letters and then carved it with a speedball tool.

A look at the clear coat and color of the wood.

The polyurethane process, due to the current cold weather is what gave me the most trouble. I had to wet sand them a few times since it was causing bubbles. I got them out though, and what usually would only take two coats, took four. But I'm happy with how they turned out. I did not stain them before hand with anything, so the color there is the natural wood and amber of the polyurethane. I think they turned out really pretty, and despite my set backs I think they look good.

I've shown these to a few people and they actually said they'd be interested in buying their own set of custom stamps. Since I have been making plans to sell original paintings soon, would this be something you all would be interested in as well? Let me know in the comments! I really enjoyed the process and would have no problem making more of these little things. It was also fun to do something different and make me problem solve on another level.

Christmas Gifts

So here are two out of the three things I have been working on lately for Christmas. And now that they have them I can post them up to share with the rest of you! Though there is one other that is taking longer, that I'll post up later. But for now, 2 out of 3 isn't bad right?

The first is a picture of my grandparents dog Bruiser. Who recently passed away due to bone cancer. We all miss him dearly, and when they unwrapped it everyone got a little emotional. But it was happy tears, or at least I would hope. I decided to depict him in one of his funnier moments so it'd be something nice to look back on. And since you have not seen a picture of him, that painting is to scale. He really was that huge.

This other set of three images I did are of a video game my sister and her boyfriend are obsessed with, which is Red Dead Redemption. I can't say I don't love it myself. But! Their apartments decor is mostly art prints, and ones where the alignment of the prints are off on purpose. So instead of making just a poster like image, I thought it'd be fun to do almost a deconstructed set of three images that reflect the main character of the game. 

The other goal is to make it similar enough to where it would work with the other prints they already had. Which all have a very rough, possibly hipster feel to them.  I may do this again and make a series, since it was fun to try to think of three different instances, or objects that I felt really reflected the character as a whole. Doing John I found was difficult since he is such a complex character, so trying it with others could prove a nice challenge. 

They seemed really excited when they got them, and immediately pointed out that they would work well with their "gun prints" which was the point. So all in all, 2 out of the 3 so far have been successful! The third you will be updated on soon, probably in the next few weeks. 

WIP Holiday Kids

This is a new illustration I'm working on based around some kids peering into a toy store. I thought I'd show some more work in progress stuff on how I paint. I typically paint like the old masters did, but change the under painting colors to suit the different subjects. Instead of just relying on green, red, or some other variation. An obvious difference here is I'm working digitally, but since Im working with Painter the same rules apply.  In this one I'm using purple, red, and green under painting and just blocking in the scene with those colors. After Im satisfied with a roughed in composition I start adding on the actual layers of color for the foreground, middle, and background. Typically I start with the background first as you can see from the finished light pole, and then work forward. It tends to make my life a lot easier.

This is obviously still in it's really rough stages and I'll be working on it for the better part of today. I'll make sure to make a few more posts with different stages in trying to explain them. One day I'll actually see about live streaming myself painting. That might be fun!

I hope anyone who is interested in the process finds this informative. If you have any questions let me know!