I can’t believe it’s already five days into the new year! This also means that we’re five days into the January daily pattern challenge! For this month I’ve decided to carve stamps out of rubber or linoleum blocks to use for my patterns. So far I’ve been using this rubber block by Speedball, and have found it really easy to work with.

The image above is from today, using a stamp inked with a white ink pad onto kraft paper. The black doodles were drawn individually by hand with a Faber-Castell pen. The stamp was carved on day 3. It’s amazing how much of a change there is in the feel of the image with a different ink color, and on different paper. I’ll be doing a mix of carving new stamps, and re-using them based upon how much time and energy I have at the end of my days. I’m looking forward to mixing some hand drawn elements into my prints. I’m excited to know that I’ll come out of the month (hopefully) with some better carving skills, and also a nice set of stamps that I can re-use later.

You can find my patterns for this month posted daily at Instagram or Flickr. The tag #patternadayjan on Instagram has lots of inspirational patterns posted daily by artists working in a variety of media. Some of my favorites this month have been from Kristin (watercolor), Carlene (paper collage), and TJ (mixed). Anika is also making some awesome block prints this month, so be sure to check out her blog or Instagram. You can find more details on Anika’s blog if you’d like to join in the challenge.

Tomorrow I’m be writing about keeping up with a Project Life scrapbook in 2013, as I start to work on my first week of the album.