Cover Art for RubberStampMadness Summer 2010

How exciting is this?!  I was thrilled to finally get my copy of the Summer 2010 RubberStampMadness with my artwork on the cover.  I can honestly say that I really worked hard on this piece.  In fact, I did it over in a completely different color scheme.  My first try was in oranges, but, then, I realized that this was going to be a summer issue...........and my piece was looking a lot like Halloween!  LOL   So, back to the drawing board I went and here's the final piece.   I started with a sheet of water color paper and spritzed it with Glimmer Mist Sea Glass.  Next I printed a practice sheet of calligraphy that I had scanned from a book I bought at a secondhand bookstore.  I am an aphabet addict!  I had over half a dozen rubberstamps of differing styles of alphabets.  I stamped them in various colors of ink and then laid them out over the printed calligraphy sheet.  I finally decided on the three you see here.  I also have alphabet cards that I had used with my grandchildren and chose to have A & Z.  I used alcohol inks to color these cards.  Next I brought out my very large letters to stamp the A, B, and C.  I have a rubberstamp that has lines similiar to those on practice sheets for elementary students.  I used papers that had graduated colors for these letters, but first did a light stamping of a jacquard pattern behind the letters.  I started layering all these images on my page to see what else the page needed.  Other images I chose were:  the ink pen, the pencil, pen nibs, the hand with the quill, and the ink bottle.  I stamped them all with a black inkpad and cut them out.  After adding these, I thought it needed a spot of color and "X marks the spot" came to mind.  I remembered my decorated alphabet and stamped the "X" in red.  I cut the X out and added it to the page.  I studied my page for several days and kept thinking about being in school and learning the alphabet.  I then had the idea to add the little girl sitting with an open book.  After I stamped her on light blue paper with black ink, I used a black pen to write in the "A" and the "B" on the pages of the book.  I cut her out placed her on the alphabet in the front.  Last of all, I made the decision to add the small a, b and c to accompany the larger letters.  I had also hand lettered the alphabet across the top of the page in a 1/4" border.  Roberta called me when this was being prepared for the final print and asked if I had any objections to loosing that top 1/4" that included the handlettered alphabet.  Well, of course, I had no objections!  ")   I am very pleased with the final copy.