lesson7

When I first read about on-line stamping friends keeping a stamping journal, I thought, "Oh, that's not for me. I'm no artist!" But the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of having a set place to work out my ideas for new scenes. So I bought a simple spiral bound sketch book and started stamping rough plans of scenes in it. I make notes of what to mask, what to take out of the scene, and what more to add. I sometimes add notes on coloring; which pencils or markers I used, and what techniques I used for coloring in the scene. Once a scene is complete, I include either the original or a reduced color photocopy on the page opposite my notes. Here are two examples:

As you can see, my rough plan of this scene is a mess! I didn't bother to mask anything, just stamped away, one image on top of another. But it gave me an idea of how the scene would look, and what needed to be changed. Note that I first used a larger sun image, then stamped a smaller one inside of it - as you can see from the finished scene, I liked the look of the smaller sun better. I also moved the bee from the far right to a place closer to the center. The numbers indicate in which order to stamp the images. I have also found the journal to be a good place to keep my masks. This way they are not all jumbled together in an envelope; I just flip through my journal to find the masks I need.

Stamps: woman, small peeking bear: Art Impressions; seated bear on left, bear in mailbox: DJ Inkers; bear with honey, grass, flower bush, fence, sunflowers, beehive birdhouse, bee: Darcie's Country Folk; small sun: A Country Welcome.

Here is another example from my journal. Among other things, I noted how I wanted to move the images.

Stamps: woman stamping: Art Impressions; cat: part of bookplate stamp by All Night Media; leopard: The Stamp Pad; dark green leaves: Rubber Stampede; light green leaves: Posh Impressions; floral stripe: unknown.

What started out as an indulgence of my secret longing to consider myself an artist has become an invaluable stamping tool. Though I never did create a fabulous cover for my journal, as so many of my friends have, it is something I use every time I stamp. I love being able to look back at all of my scenic attempts, to learn from my mistakes as well as my successes. Keeping a stamping journal was one of the best decisions I've made since I started stamping.