A Kiss From A Rose
This card was for the LTC Bumptious Burlesque.  I had narrowed this card down to two images i really liked so i decided to carve both.  This first image was of this woman's face with the interesting hat and mysterious quality to her.  I was not happy with the way the hair and hat turned out.  It looked a little like when you char or burn something and it leaves that crackling effect to it.  But i was very happy with the lips, eyes, and overall look to the card which i cut out from a simple egg white card stock.  I just found some simple paper with a roses on it and used it as a background.  I had some fancy individual letters i bought and used that as the typeface.  I also used a die cutter to make the corners a little fancier.  For the back i carved a little more risque image which i was happy with but was a simple black and white abstract woman. 

AVATAR: Neytiri

This card i enjoyed making but took a little time and effort.  Of course with the success of the movie Avatar and the explosion of 3D, i wanted to incorporate that to a card.  So i first tried to an embossing of the image and that wasn't bad but i knew i needed something for color and to make it pop.  So i thought if i printed it on blue paper i wouldn't have to use blue as the ink.  Then i knew i needed something else to make it stand out so i added yellow in the yes and some white sparkles around the face which i added with a fine brush and paint.  I then cut out the printed image and glued it to a thicker card stock to raise it up a little more.  You can see the shadow effect on the left side of her head to show the depth.  I found some scrapbook paper with some natural forest greenery as a background and glued that onto a card.  My carving skills with faces has increased ten fold since this piece so even though i am happy with it, i know her face could have been even better and more realistic.  But i enjoyed the card and how it all came together.

Here is the back of the card.  I was really pleased with the title font that i carved.  Lettering can be tricky but i feel this came really close to the actual lettering on all the Avatar press materials.  I added my signature stamp and a small bio of the significance of the film and its' history.

WPA POSTER: VISIT THE ZOO

This card was designed from an old Works Projects poster from Philadelphia in the late 1930's.  I tried again to do a two color process before realizing it would have been easier just to color in the blue elephant by hand.  But you live and learn.  The card stock i used had a tan marble effect to it which made it look kind of aged.  If you ever see the real poster i think i have done a pretty good representation of it.  The image struck me as interesting with the elephant being slightly abstract and the bold letters "Visit the Zoo" underneath.  It wasn't a bad recreation of a part of the past.

Harry Potter: Severus Snape

This was my third LTC and again was trying out a couple of techinques.  This time i tried my hand at embossing.  I used it on Snape's figure which you can't tell in this image but it's there.  And i also tried a couple of different colors for the background until i thought a cold steely blue worked.  The color helps make it not too bright but not too dark either.  It ended up being a good happy medium.  I tried reds, greens, and a few others for the background but they just never seemed to work as well as the blue.  Again, trying to line up the stamp underneath with the black one on top was a challenge especially when transferring the images and making sure his eyes, nose and mouth all lined up too.  I also began working on adding some dramatic touches to the backs of the cards as well.  This one had a Slytherin house logo with some info about Snape mixed with a stamp saying this was a limited edition.

Academy Awards: The Godfather
This was the second LTC i ever made.  I made it in October of 2009.  I decided for my second stamp to go a little adventurous and try the two color stamp process.  It was a bit tricky trying to get both images onto separate transfer sheets, applying them to two separate stamps and making sure they both line up properly.  The brown/tan i used is a little different then how it shows up on this image but it's pretty close.  I tried a couple of other colors (red, blue) for the flesh but eventually chose the brown for everyone else and kept the odd colored ones for myself.  I really do like the way this one came out.  The white parts you see on the brown was what i carved out and kept the rest of the stamp solid so it lined up easier when i laid the solid black stamp over it.  So there is actually brown underneath that black as well.  And then on the black stamp, everything you see is what i carved out on that piece so that when i laid it over the brown that's what showed through.

The Beatles: Happiness Is A Warm Gun
This was first attempt at an LTC in October of 2009.  I was not sure of what to expect or what to even design.  I decided to try and come up with some imagery that was ambiguous as well as appear like a movie poster.  This Beatles song i chose was a little more obscure than some of their hits but i had seen it performed in the movie Across The Universe and it was a cool scene so i thought i would pick that one.  I had not been carving that long but thought that a one color print would be the easiest for a first time card.  I suppose, after the fact, that some color might have helped make the image pop more but it was an interesting design for my first time out.