Taking Your Art Stamps
To A New Level
Artistamps Workshop
Making art stamps is a labor of love for those who are fascinated or intrigued with postal art. But, like any art, it takes that extra touch of love to give your artistamps just the right send off.
So when I am making artistamps, I look at what what I can do to tweak them and take them to the next level. And what emerges are several techniques ... which only become conscious when I am focusing on how to explain and illustrate to you what I do.
Below is a quick overview ... and at the bottom is a link to the online workshop.
Font Impact
Because artistamps have writing on them to convey the country of origin, cost, and special information ... after the image itself the font you choose conveys a lot of information to the viewer. Whether you want to convey whimsy or seriousness ... fonts can be a major player.
Positioning
Once you have all the elements together*, where you place them can say a lot -- a few subtle choices can make a big impact. If you want to mimic a real stamp, there are certain standard positions for where each element belongs. If you want to signal the "inheiraunt"* artistic nature of your stamp, change the placement or reverse the text and your intent is unmistakable.
Emphasis & Mood
The elements play with each other, and form a sense of harmony in a great artistamp. To achieve that balance ... you can play with the emphasis of each element to create different moods.
More Moodiness
Hard to describe, the mood of your stamp is determined by more than just the image and font you choose. Color, your choice of words and symbols you use all come into play when capturing mood.
Happy Accidents
Finally, it is the happy accidents that bring some of the best artistamps out in my work. It is the interrupting phone call or nudge of the dog's nose when he wants to go out and play that can turn the ordinary stamp into something ... else. I look now for the silver lining in these happy accidents that produce unusual color combinations, strange placements, and ghostly images.
Making More Realistic Artistamps
One of the things that I worked on once I had made a few stamps, was trying to achieve more realistic looking art stamps. I wanted to evoke the time period and place -- sometimes for places that did not exist and for times in history when stamps had not yet been used. In order to do that, I had to study what made real stamps look "real" and repeat that in my own choices of images, sizes, fonts, text and symbols.
