Hi Grumpy Grinch,

Sorry you got green and missed the shindig. I'm happy to share with you (and
all others who missed it) our experience.

My son and I went and enjoyed ourselves very much. There were about fifteen
people present with 12 stamps amongst us I believe, PLUS ArtTrekker got
recruited to create, on the spot, an event stamp! Princess Lea shared some
tips that were very helpful to us newbies. A real revolution was the idea of
drawing in pencil what we want to carve - on paper or tracing paper, NOT
directly on the stamp - then placing the paper face down on the stamping pad
and rolling a pencil over it to pass the image onto the stamp pad. Presto -
you get a mirror-image drawing to carve, making your stamp itself come out
the way you intend it! (I couldn't get the hang of drawing mirror-image
before, and keep forgetting that it will not stamp correctly if there are
any letters involved!) You may have known this already, but for us it was
truly revolutionary and a great relief from thinking we'll have to work with
a mirror to "get it right"!

We watched BlackBird carve an intricate series of curvy shapes, and were
amazed to observe that she rotates the STAMP rather than the carving
instrument. This makes her lines much smoother than anything I've been able
to achieve before. (Okay, then I tried it, and my lines were still not as
smooth, but they were improved! She does have much more practice....)

We also got much more clear in our minds the difference between carving out
the lines and carving everything BUT the lines. To celebrate this
understanding, my son and I carved an alien and its reverse/shadow :-).

My son doesn't tend to want to spend any time in group gatherings of any
sort, but he enjoyed about 2.5 of the 3 hours or so that we spent at the
gathering - which is as high a compliment to everyone present as I can
share!

Oh, it was really the best to put faces to some of the names we've seen
while letterboxing! Thanks to all who came, shared, brought yummy stuff,
etc., and especially to BlackBird for chatting, hosting and supplying,
Princess Lea for officially teaching, ArtTrekker for the event stamp, and
Mimulus for she knows what.

Alien Explorers

From: "grumpygrinchy"
Reply-To: LbNCA@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 22:12:38 -0000
To: LbNCA@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [LbNCA] Grinch is Green



Our letterboxing weekend extravaganza was cut short by a mean old
cold germ. Grinch is fairly green about the gills - partly from the
cold and partly from envy of all of you who were well enough to
attend the carving demo in Oakland. Will you share with all of us,
please? Who was there? What did you learn? Inquiring green minds
want to know.

Grumpy Grinch




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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I'm always surprised when people mention how surprised THEY are when
they learn we don't draw images directly onto the carving block. I
sometimes forget that not everyone has had carving lessons!

Anyhow, I created a carving tutorial at
http://www.atlasquest.com/tutorials/carving/ which mentions all of the
carving tips you mentioned in your post and possibily some others you
may not know about. If you're really serious about wanting to carve
some really amazing carvings, it's definitely worth while to check out!

Sorry I wasn't able to make the shindig, but I won't be getting into
California until later this week. =(

Happy trails!

-- Ryan