Week 1 of Carve December

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Carve December, the Instagram carving challenge hosted by Julie Balzer, began this month, and we're already a week in! the prompts this year, are pretty good. They give a lot of opportunities for different types of carves, and I find myself carving things that I wouldn't normally carve. Some people don't like the prompts, but I do because it's more fun to see what everyone creates when we're all making art from the same prompt.

For day 1, the prompt was "Gentle." The hardest part of this prompt was the first things that came to my mind were things that weren't gentle, then I got in my own head and couldn't come up with something gentle. That is until I decided I'd do something that fell gently and came up with a feather. Once I carved a feather, I was going through my box of inks and came across my Distress Ink pad, Peacock Feather, and decided to use that.

For day 2, the prompt was "Metal." Honestly, when I read this prompt, I couldn't stop thinking about a robot, and I spent some time looking on Pinterest for a robot image that I wanted to carve but couldn't find one that I liked. I'm pretty picky about the images that I carve and won't carve something that I feel I can't reuse later or will not feel proud of. Eventually, I came across this image of a dagger and decided I liked it.

For day 3, the prompt was "Dotty." I had been sitting on this image of a Dalmation with its spots being blown off for a while now, and this just seemed like a good time to use it. It's also the perfect size for an LTC (3.5" x 2.5") so get ready LTC-ers. This stamp has had a lot of positive responses on Instagram which is always nice to hear.

For day 4, the prompt was "Little." Every now and then I feel like a prompt is too vague. Reading this prompt, I thought "Everything is little if I carve it on a smaller block." Of course, when I was looking at the prompts, I was watching an astronomy video, and then that made me think the Earth is small, but there are smaller things than the Earth. I had considered carving a plant cell or an atom, but then I thought "Am I seriously going to carve an atom?" I decided I would carve something smaller than an inch, and when the word inch popped into my mind, so did the inchworm. This image may have some creative liberties that were taken, but the inchworm on the carve is 1 inch long.


For day 5, the prompt was "Plain." Immediately, I thought of the Great Plains and decided I was going to carve some wheat, which grows there. There are a lot more fun things from the Great Plains to carve but since the prompt is plain, wanted something that is actually plain.

For day 6, the prompt was "Ponder." This was quite easy because I have been planning to carve this image for my event in March, the Line Event. This prompt for me just gives me the opportunity to crush two birds with one stone.

For day 7, the prompt was "Long." There are a lot of things that I think are long, but I'd call most of them tall before I called them long. Rapunzel's hair, however, is known for being long. Once I found this image I wanted to carve, I never looked back and was excited to carve it. When printing the image, I used liquid watercolors to paint the image. I love painting in my images because it adds more character to the print

I am excited to share what I have planned for the rest of #CarveDecember with you all! The next 7 day's prompts include Energy, Thorny, Smelly, Drifting, Rough, Thoughtful, and Baroque.

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