Last two cards

This is my Malayan Tapir from 3 Blind Mice's zoo swap. What a great swap that was!  Isn't it so cute the babies are born with spots. I carved this from a photo. These Tapirs live in the Edinburgh zoo in Scotland. I love that adorable front foot. I only wish I could have captured the baby's snout more accurately.  

My last card is what I did for the Lighthouse swap back in August. I chose the only lighthouse that meant something to me. Faulkner's Island Lighthouse in Long Island 

Sound near Guilford, CT. I visited this lighthouse when I was three with my mom, my aunt Jill and their cousin Joel. I remember clearly the numerous bunnies. They didn't have any predators on this tiny island. The rabbit was my first two layer carve. I used water color pencils for the background.  

My mom's cousin Joel founded the Faulkner's Light Brigade to help protect the lighthouse and to keep it in use. Coincidentally Joel also married me and Alex on July 2nd, 2006. 

Here's what I did for the 12 Days of Christmas Swap.  The design is from a cross stitch pattern. I was going to actually cross stitch on the card, but I got ahead of myself and glued it to cardboard before I could do that. I colored the birds with tissue paper and markers. This card was fun to make. 

This bottom photo is what I did for Lithium for the Periodic table swap. Lithium is found in batteries and mood stabilization medication among other things. I decided to parody those colorful ipod ads with someone who was listening to their ipod and suffering from depression.  These cards had to have an atomic number so I carved a 3 inside an apple. 

Below is the filing system I used to sort the element cards and a picture of me packing up cards. What a mess! Alex and I sorted over 10,000 cards, but it wasn't brain bending at all. I was like dealing cards into slots. I had bags and bags of bubbled envelopes. 

S&G and

This card is from the Simon and Garfunkle Swap. I chose the song American Tune. Paul Simon wrote this right after the break up of the duo. When the duo reunited for the concert and central park they performed it and for subsequent concerts it became a crowd favorite. I've always been drawn to the lyrics in this song: "We come on the ship they call the Mayflower

We come on the ship that sailed the moonWe come in the age's most uncertain hoursand sing an American tune" 

For me the song evokes an America that is is danger of losing top billing on the world's

 stage.  The ideals that we fought for in world war II; democracy, and cultural freedom seem lost in an era rife with the dirty politics of tricky 

dicky. This song meant a lot to me in high school; I was a student of U.S. history learning about the motivations of our founding leaders. Their motivations weren't always pure. History my junior year was one of those lessons when you feel like for the first time intellectually your eyes are wide open. I still feel like this song speaks to that. So much of the day is just work and routine and those moments where one engages with what

 makes them tick are about as rewarding as those other moments where one just totally disengages to have fun. Paul Simon wrote the song on the heels of Nixon's reelection; this song was meant to sum up his disappointment with the result.  On the card I highlighted the lyric, "and I don't know a dream that's not been shattered or driven to its knees" 

 This was my card for the Louis Comfort Tiffany  Swap. This swap turned out awesome. Definitely for the next swap I host the topic will be something to do with art history. 

and 2 more

 I was in an Asian swap! The returns were great. I've seen a bunch of Asian artist trading cards and they also come out looking so clean and pretty. For this swap I carved a lantern with the characters that say China in gold.  The base is a Chinese newspaper in Seattle and the photos came from a National Geographic pictorial on China. Each card had a different photo on it, but all were images of China. Some had people, other had landscape and industry. I save this one for myself because I thought a bag of ducks really illustrated an example of cultural difference between the U.S. and China.  

This dog card is from the Paper hoarders swap. It 

Laika the first animal in Space. Laika was a Russian stray that was put into orbit in 1957 and immediately died.  Her sacrifice paved the way for human space flight; within five years of her orbit the Soviet Union launched first successful maned space mission.  I first thought of carving Laika when I wanted to bring a November event themed box to my first event. I bought the cool spacemen paper and never used it until the swap.  This print is based off a package of Laika brand cigarettes. This was my second two layer print. The beige is one layer and then I stamped black over it. I then wrote Laika in cyrillic script. 

Getting up to date

Here's my contribution for The Way I See it Swap.  We each got assigned a person. I got assigned Camp Fire Lady and Buttercup got assigned to me.  I checked CFL's profile and she had Johnny Depp in capital letters in a couple places and I know she's a big believer in the Camp Fire organization. So I gave Johnny a Camp Fire tattoo.  CFL is an excellent carver, so I was pleased when this portrait turned out so well. 

On the left is my submission for the National Park Swap. What an awesome idea for a swap. When I went to the Evergreen State College in Olympia, I studied Environmental Studies.  We each had to do a report on a National Park or Monument.  I had to do my report on Aztec Ruins in New Mexico. Some one else did Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho and I always thought that was such an interesting park. The pictures of the landscape look very foreign. I've never been to the park, but I hope to. This design is from a photo a yellow plant growing out of this black volcanic material with a desert landscape in the background I tried to recreate that in the LTC. I used watercolor pencils for the first time with this card. This has been my most successful application of the pencils.  They haven't looked as great on other cards. Watercolor work is so transparent every brush stroke shows and I'm not very exacting with my colors. I bought a book on watercolor pencils and I hope I get better with time. 

Black and white swap and my Gorey card.

Doglvrs came up with a great idea for a swap. All white and all black. The results were fantastic! Almost everyone stuck to the all black and all white. Having finished reading Moby Dick the previous March, I got my inspiration from the wood block illustration peppered throughout the great American novel. I wanted to create waves and clouds on top and bottom but it didn't work out too well. On the back were quotes from the novel that were placed under the illustration in the book. The black card is Captain Ahab profoundly gazing into his soul reflected by the ocean. The white card is Moby when the crew actually gets to see him in all his glory. The realize not only how massive the white whale is but also he is something that can't be and won't be captured. A hundred pages later Quiqueg is making his own coffin. forebode!

In terms of my opinion of the novel I thought it was pretty good. It even inspired me to read some other Melville writing, Typee (not so great) and Benito Cereno (pretty great). The way Melville meticulously and poetically deconstructs the vestiges of whaling: rope, a simple harpoon or the essential members of the crew: the man in the crows nest, the harpooner, these details are worthy of the greatest American novel. However for me, I was hoping for more character drama and conflict. I wanted more confrontations between Ahab and the crew. So my favorite parts were the beginning and the end.

This last card is from the Gashley Crumb Tinies by Edward Gorey ring. I love the colors of the card and the Roy Liechtenstein stamp turned out excellent. But when I got this card back with rest of the alphabet I realized I had made a mistake. Mine stuck out like a sore thumb. Everyone else did the classic Gorey kid and then added their own creative touches like movable parts or fabric. I ditched the kid Maud and went this drowning girl. I don't know how this happened. People said they liked the card, but I wish it was more Gorey. It started this way when I decided I wasn't going to copy gorey but copy a more famous artist?? So dissatisfied. The stamp is kicking, though.

More cards!

Here's my color study. I love working with magazines and hand carved stamps. I named this card checkerboard charmbow. It's probably my favorite card, the work to make it is time consuming but not in a tedious way, so this card is currently not retired.

My next card is my Russian doll card or Matroyshka. These dolls were collected by my sister. I carved this stamp originally for a postal to send out and it was well received. Much later I found this really cute stickers in an Asian bookstore. The background paper, which is very pretty is from Impress in University village. I go into that store pretty frequently for paper ribbon and ideas.

Another card carved for a postal ring is my Celtic lion from the book of Kells. I first learned about the book of Kells in high school. Its an ornate ancient Bible that was created by monks in I think 15th century. I don't remember. Ancient history isn't my bag. This stamp was part of the Ancient symbols PLB ring. One person carved this awesome Hebrew mandala, which made me want to carve some Judaica. I haven't tried it yet. This stamp is my most successful carve to date. So I intend to hold onto the stamp for posterity.

One last card made from a stamp from a postal ring is my mojito card. Mojito is a rum cocktail from Cuba with muddled mint, lime and sugar. A Hemingway favorite the cool sugary tartness of this combination makes the Mojito very drinkable. My mom sent me this paper for Christmas last year. I told I wanted decorative paper, so she went to Jo-Anns and picked out the ones she like. In retrospect this card might have looked better with white checkerboard. I still haven't figured out what to do with the stamp.

More cards!

This was originally a personal traveler that I called goatfish. The participants had to guess what astrological sign I meant by goatfish. Apparently it wasn't easy, even the Green Tortuga had to give it a moment's thought. Anyway my sister is a Capricorn, January 11. And someday I hope to plant this stamp in her honor.

The image is not my design, I copied it from one of my favorite printmakers winged lion on etsy or Natalia Moroz. Her work is awesome and inspirational. I've learned a lot just from her website.

This Handsome bird is a Steller's Jay. He is very common to the Cascades region. I didn't capture the brilliant dark blue, but he would have some on his back. Just consider him the Pacific Northwest's version of the Blue Jay. There about the same size. A part of my Birds of my [current] Backyard series, there were two other birds in the series. I made only six of each card. The paper came in a paper scrap back from the University book store.

The Northern Flicker or Red Shafted Flicker is a member of my Birds of my Backyard series. I see these fellows quite often while letterboxing. They are tenacious foragers and quite well painted, I think. Carving dots/small circles is something for which I have little patience, so I was pleased with his belly.

The last member of the birds is the Spotted Owl. A classic indicator species of old growth forest. If these owls are happy and breeding the forest is healthy, if not then there is too much logging going on. Recently I've seen a bunch of owls that look at lot like Spotted Owls and perhaps they were but my binoculars are not fantastic and I think I've been seeing Barred Owls. Barred Owls are a strong Southeastern species, which are eating the spotted Owls out of house and home.

The first card is my french shoe, which I turned into a hitchhiker. I had had the fancy paper for a long time, I wanted to carve something elegant to go with it. So I did. I got the paper from the University Bookstore in the U District in Seattle, which has really unique paper and scraps.

The second card I made way back in March for individual trades. The cool thing about this funky card is every part of it (including ink) comes from Asia. Maybe that's not surprising. Origami, souffle pens, tiny Japanese stickers complete this card that I titled SUSHI. The Japanese characters say Sushi too.