100 Days of Hand-Carved Stamps: Week 12 Update

Week 12 included 8 newly carved stamps, representing each of my dice assignment shapes and sources of inspiration. So you get a little bit of everything this week. Read on to learn more about each stamp's dice assignment and see the amazing array of printed patterns that emerged over last week.

78/100: Circles + Artist's Choice

"Once you break a habit into its components, you can fiddle with the gears."
-Charles Duhigg, American Journalist and Non-fiction Author

Fiddling with gears, cogs, and sprockets on day 78 of this daily carving/printing habit!! Here they are layered into a grid layout...

Then connected into one large mechanical system...

Finally layered with ghost prints to create all over prints.

79/100: Triangle + Text

"There is no such thing as away. When you throw something away, it must go somewhere."
-Annie Leonard, Executive Director of Greenpeace

These are some of the most intricate and tiny letters that I've carved. I kept the printing to a minimum so as to not waste too many trees. But I have plans of using this stamp on reusable bags and other projects focused on sustainability.

80/100: Square + Repeat Patterns

"What art is, in reality, is this missing link, not the links which exist. It's not what you see that is art; art is the gap."
-Marcel Duchamp, French-American Painter/Sculptor

Examining the links and gaps that inspire and inform my art practice. These prints remind me of the Waterworks Card Game that I used to play where you had to create a continuous, leak-free pipeline.

81/100: Skinny + Lines

Transforming carving block scraps into fun prints! It was slim pickings as to long/skinny scraps. This particular scrap was a leftover from trimming out a previous leaf shape. As I was carving out the lines, I almost scrapped it entirely. But surprise! It offered some really interesting printed patterns! Several of these prints reminded me of Ruth Asawa's stunning sculptures, hence the selected quote to include in my daily post:

"An artist is not special. An artist is an ordinary person who can take ordinary things and make them special."
-Ruth Asawa, American Modernist Sculptor

It got even more interesting with more negative space!

82/100: Circle + Pattern/Repetition

"Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see."
-Paul Klee, Swiss-born German artist

What do you see in these circular prints?!? Pairs of boogly eyes? Worm holes? Tunnels? Cones?

83/100: Artist's Choice + Nature

"Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."
-Nathaniel Hawthorne, American Novelist

Celebrating my personal spirit animal, the butterfly🦋. What's your spirit animal? While they are black and white here, I may need to add a few pops of color with magic markers to transform these beautiful butterflies.