I’m delighted to bring you another episode of the Adventures in Arting Podcast!  Today’s podcast features chatter about Carve December and the Blogiversary.  Here are the links I promised:

* My Missing Quilt: LINK

* The Creative JumpStart Visual Interview (you can still sign up HERE):

* And all of the #CarveDecember goodness that I promised:

Nicole Maki:

CarveDecember is my favorite challenge of the year. It is a great opportunity to grow as an artist as I find the act of completing thirty-one stamps improves my carving and the way I think about stamp design. Working on a similar project each day helps to hone my individual style. It also provides time to work through the more difficult technical aspects of stamp carving – for me that is visualizing what to cut away and what to keep in order to ensure the most impact.

This year I challenged myself to spend the month making original characters, each with a one sentence back story. By giving the characters some context, for example, “Grady is prone to rearranging things when anxious.” people were able to relate to my stamps personally and say, “I’m a Grady too”.

One of my favorite things about CarveDecember is the amazing community Julie has created. The support really helped me push through on those too-busy days of December and the constant influx of inspiration has a collaborative effect as people see a stamp, make it their own and then another person uses that new image as a starting point for their stamps. This steady stream of great ideas provides a fertile environment for art to grow.

Gerald’s tiny umbrella wasn’t the strangest thing about him:

Grady is prone to rearranging things when anxious:

Meredith’s favorite way to relax is sparring at the local mixed martial arts club.

Pearl’s passions include politics, hand fans, and umbrellas:

Nicole’s blog, instagram

Marta Harvey:

About 10 years ago I was creating and trading a lot of ATCs (Artist Trading Cards), and having a wonderful time learning new techniques.  My approach was to learn, practice, then put my spin on it.  My ATCs were therefore always changing, as I was always looking for something different to try.

After looking at M. C. Escher’s optical illusions book one day, I decided I was going to try a tessellation of my own.  Hah!  Easier said than done!  It took me a few days (if I remember correctly), fiddling with sketches, grids, rulers, tracing paper, etc. (all hand-drawn), but I finally came up with a tessellation.