Challenge #212 and Pattern Inspired by Indian flower

Challenge #212: "UMT: Fanz by Susan Goetter"

This week's challenge was to use the Fanz tangle created by Susan Goetter - you can see step-outs through a link in the Diva's challenge page here.

I loved this tangle (the one on the top right) as it is very forgiving.  I decided to try out a few variations, but you can just have them quite plain and it looks really nice!  I can't wait to see everyone's entry in the challenge - they are always so inspiring!

Pattern Inspired by Indian Flower

When I was in India last month, I had a weekend "free" and visited several temples and palaces near Bangalore.  As my mind has been stuck on patterns recently :), I took some pictures I would hope would inspire me to create new designs. 

I have not yet created anything with the patterns other than sketch some of them, but saw the sculpture of a flower, that inspired me to create this very simple hand-carved stamp. 

When you print it all the way around (4 times) you get this pattern - and you can see the flower in the center.

If you print it again but with the "flower center" towards the outside corners this time, you end up with a very different pattern (I love this one).

I tried it out again, now printing it 4 times across and 4 down, starting with the flower center at the corner.  You can see how different it looks from the one below where the stamp was pointing the other way.  These were finished with colored pencil, pen and ink, and Sakura gel pens 

(to highlight the shapes - cross vs. flower)

This next set is the same, except these were painted with H2Os (shimmering watercolors) and finished with pen and ink.

Challenge #180 and Well Inspired Stamp

Challenge #180

First of all... THANK YOU to all you wonderful people who leave such nice comments on my posts.  I absolutely love getting comments, reading them, and answering them.  With my lack of time lately I have not been able to answer as many as I'd like, but know that I really, really appreciate them.

This week's challenge (here) is to use the tangle MacDee by Anneke Van Dam.  I went with another little 2x2 inch tile again this week - I'm trying to get used to the new size :)

Well Inspired Stamp

I love the Well tangle, and a few months ago I carved two little stamps so I could play with the tangle in different ways.  You can see a couple of the prints in this post.  I still like these as I can do different things with them.

When I got home on Friday, I decided to create a bigger stamp with 2 squares to make the Well pattern.  I added a few other shapes to the stamp as well; I hope you enjoy it.

Created this card for a friend's birthday on Saturday.
Here I just outlined the bigger shapes painted with watercolors.

This one (SIL's birthday) was also painted with watercolors,
but I added a lot more detail with some tangles thrown in :)

After giving those 2 away right after I was done with them, I decided to make one for myself :)

Just a little test with the first print and Inktense

Challenge #179 and Apple / Pig Nose / Alien Carved Stamp

Challenge #179

Diva's challenge this week was to create a 2'x2' tile... ok... that's really little!!  You can read all about Bijou's story, the challenge, and the new small, fun tiles here.

So, I cut a few 2x2 inch squares from Bristol paper, and thought for sure I would only use 1 tangle per tile.  Hmmm... it didn't turn out quite like that, did it?  I spent about the same time as I do on a larger tile, and by the time I was done I was not thinking about the size of the tile anymore.

Size relative to mechanical pencil - tiny, isn't it?

Apple / Pig Nose / Alien Carved Stamp:

So, to relax this last weekend, I decided to carve a triangle stamp, that when printed together would form a pattern.  Well... it turned out really weird :)... and it made everyone at home think of completely different things when looking at it.

This is the original printing of the triangle stamp

And this is the same print after having been painted with watercolors, and outlined with pen

So, what does it make you think of?  I think of apples, but my husband and son came up with aliens and pig noses :)  I had fun, anyway :)

Challenge #175 and Stamp Carving - Mirror repeat

Challenge #175

We're in the process of putting our condo up for sale this week, so all of a sudden (while I was at work) all my art supplies were gone and packed away, all I have left are a few tiles, and my pens.  So, I feel very lucky I had put them in a nice plarn crochet basket I had made and they survived the packing :).

The challenge was to use Crux by Henrike Bratz - you can see the step outs here and Diva's challenge here.

I was trying out this new tangle at work during lunch time.  I looked at the step outs, and though... "OK, got it!" and then grabbed my pad of paper and went for it.  Hmmm... that didn't work!  OK, back to the computer to review the steps again, then back to the paper.  I must have done this four or five times, I hate to admit, I was just not getting it that you do one X on 4 grids!!  Somehow I was missing that, and obviously it was not working.  Once I got it, it was easy-peasy, and a lot of fun :).  

Stamp Carving - Mirror repeat

Continuing on with Julie Fei-Fan's book - Carve, Stamp, Play...

Mirror repeat is a bit deceptive as you cannot really print the mirror image of a stamp, but the idea is that you rotate your stamp and print it next to the one you just printed.  So, I played around with a few designs, but ended up going with this one:

Print of mirror stamp

Ugly stage - after it has been painted with H2Os

Finished

Printed the stamp in a way such that
I created 4x4 squares of each side of the stamp -
unlike above where you had alternating (1x1) squares