Stamping, stamping and more stamping

The stamping experiments continue! Ironically, there has been something very liberating about restricting myself to exploration in one area.  Using the outie form* of my stamps and pastels I returned to a colour palette that was me several years ago and created what I call my relics.  Friends and family would talk about Wendy colours and knew this meant emerald, magenta, turquoise and ultramarine (give or take).  In these pieces, I sometimes augmented the impression of the stamp with additional texture makers and then added more texture by pressing the completed piece with a texture sponge.  This also helped to embed the pastel chalks into the clay.Many of my homemade stamps were leaf forms and certainly there has been a leafy theme to my latest experiments.  I combined my stamps, pastels and, for the earring components, silk screens by Helen Breil and made a bangle and a couple of forms that I will make into BIG BEADS!!  There was something about these that reminded me of my childhood and some research yielded barkcloth.  This led into a bit of an online rabbit hole but I got lots more ideas about designs and saw that everything old gets new again!! So many of the new fabric designs we are currently seeing borrow heavily from mid century barkcloth patterns!For lots of inspiration and ideas, you might like to subscribe to Heidi Helyard's Studio Scraps which is a fabulous read each week.  I get easily overwhelmed by words (I know, ironic!) and Heidi has the perfect sized newsletter of tips, techniques, prompts and links.  And who knows what you might read about in coming months or weeks!?  I also feel a class coming on so watch this space.*technical terms! The outies are the stamps that have fine raised lines so leave large flat areas when used. The innies have the lines carved into them so leave lines when pressed.  I had a photo of the outies in my last post and here are the innies!