Second Floor Challenge #2: Use Something New

A big part of my artistic practice is pushing myself to try new things. If you’re interested in trying new things, then the Second Floor challenge is for you!  Are you ready to take it to the second floor?

The challenge this time around is to use something from your art stash that you’ve never used before.  Whatever that means to you or however it inspires you.  The prompt is simply meant to get you started.  The level of challenge you aim for is entirely internal and up to you.

Click here to see what Nat did.

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New To Me

The never-before-used-item I chose to work with were these clear stamps designed by my friend, Lisa Pace:

On the left is “Society Lady” and on the right is “Stylish and Fashionable.”

I do a lot of stamping and printmaking in my artistic practice, so I’m always delighted to have new stamps to play with. Lisa was kind enough to send me these stamps and while they’re super gorgeous, they’re just not my usual style.  I don’t do vintage very well and I don’t feel that comfortable with fine line stamps.  Not in my wheelhouse.  So I knew that what I needed to do with them was find a way to make them my own.  

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Making It My Own

I’m currently in the grips of a Gelli Printing obsession, so I had to drag out some monoprints I had made. At first, I tried stamping directly into the paint, but as you can see from the prints…

 …it didn’t really work.  I think the stamps are too fine-lined.  So I decided to regroup and try using the silhouette of the man holding the pen and the journal. 

Much more successful! One of the major tenets of my artistic practice is to keep going. It’s very easy to give up and stop before you’ve truly exhausted the possibilities. I make every effort to keep pushing past my first ideas.

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Adding Stamping

I wanted to make the piece a bit more mixed media (which requires using more than just paint). So I decided to see if I could add in some stamping.  

As you can see, I stamped inside some of the silhouettes. I experimented with adding text and typing and trying to tell a story.

I wasn’t happy with any of the results, so I decided to keep trying new things (exercising my keep-going-philosophy) and I came up with this mixed media art journal page:

I’m pleased with the results. I think that this piece is a good mix of my style and Lisa’s stamps.  It tells a story and really uses the stamps to tell that story.  

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Learnings

Here’s what I’m taking away from this experience:

• A technique I want to use again: Cutting a silhouette based on a stamp.  I imagine there are a lot of stamps that would work for this. (And you can use your ScanNCut to make this process fairly painless.)
• As I mentioned, I like how the final product uses the stamps to tell a story.  I recently watched Anne of Green Gables and I was struck by how Anne applies her imagination to absolutely everything.  I want to apply my imagination to absolutely everything too!  I think looking at the stamps and coming up with a story that connects them qualifies as being imaginative, don’t you?  At first I kept seeing them as individual stamps, but things opened up once I was able to see the connections between them.
• The base of my final artwork is a book page turned on its side.  I debated for a long time whether I needed to glue it to something or make it into something, but I’ve decided it is done.  I’ve decided that a book page is a fine surface for finished art.
• Words really matter.  I had originally been thinking of the word “keep” instead of “collect” and “see” instead of “observe.”  But “collect” and “observe” are so much more in the style of the characters.  I’m glad I kept pushing until I found just the right words! There’s that art practice tenet coming back again!
• Don’t fight the supply.  In order to make these stamps work for me, I had to embrace what they were — fine line detail stamps of vintage people.  At first I kept trying to make them something else.  I had to embrace them in order to succeed.
• I definitely get stuck-in-a-rut using the same supplies over and over again.  And the same styles of supplies over and over again.  I have a few stamps that I use constantly and the rest of my collection just sits unused and stored away.  I am thrilled with my final project and I never would have gotten there if I hadn’t been forcing myself to use those stamps!
• I’m a big believer in gesso-ing over whatever isn’t working.  But for this challenge I decided (twice) to stop trying to fix what wasn’t working and just move on to a new sheet of paper.  A good decision, and a great alternative to remember.

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Final Thoughts

One of my biggest takeaways from this challenge is learning to embrace the inherent qualities of new supplies rather than forcing them to behave like materials I’m already familiar with. Each tool, whether it’s a stamp, stencil, or paint, has its own unique properties, and part of the creative journey is discovering how to work with them rather than against them. This experience also reminds me – once again – of the incredible importance of pushing creative boundaries in your artistic practice. Stepping outside of my comfort zone led to unexpected results that I wouldn’t have achieved otherwise. Sometimes, the best artistic breakthroughs come when we allow ourselves to explore freely, make mistakes, and see where the process takes us.

Thanks for stopping by!

PS: If you want help pushing yourself in your artistic practice, check out the fabulous community and classroom at My Art Practice.