Carve December Part 1

14 Sunday Dec 2025

Posted by Jeanette Clawson in Art, carve december

Tags

Art Journal, block design, block print, block printing, block prints, carve december, handcarved blocks, handcarved stamps, handmade books, Instagram Challenge, paper bag art journal, paper bag book, paper-collage, paperbag book

I love Carve December! It is an Instagram challenge started and hosted by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer of Balzer Designs. She provides prompts for each day of the month and people carve stamps (blocks) inspired by those prompts, or whatever. I have generally been one of the “whatever” carvers but this year I am following the prompts and having a lot of fun with it. I am curious if you can guess what the prompts might be based on what I carved. I would love it if you would leave a comment with your ideas.

I have made another paper bag art journal to capture all of the printed goodness.

Happy holidays!

I’m a Teacher at Block Printing Fest

18 Saturday Oct 2025

Posted by Jeanette Clawson in art class

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

block design, block printing, handcarved blocks, handcarved stamps, Zentangle, Zentangle Inspired Art, ZIA

I’m so excited to be able to share what was keeping me so busy in September!

If you’ve ever wanted to dive deeper into block printing, learn tips & tricks and make fun hands-on projects, or get a behind-the-scenes look at how other artists work — this is your moment.

👉 Block Printing Fest runs from Oct 28–30 and is completely free to attend live.
👉 There’s a mix of pre-recorded sessions (that you can watch anytime during the day) and live chats where you can connect with artists & attendees.
👉 And if you can’t make it to everything, the All-Access Pass gives you extended replay time + bonuses. I’ll be there teaching a session on using Zentangle fragments in block design, and honestly, the lineup is 🔥.
Don’t wait – grab your free ticket now and come join us! Get your ticket here. I am an affiliate for the Block Printing Fest which means I might receive compensation at no extra cost to you.

Carve December Interrupted

26 Thursday Dec 2024

Posted by Jeanette Clawson in Art

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

block print, carve december, golden geometry, golden spiral, handcarved blocks, handcarved stamps, Mandala

I got a great start to Carve December. It is a stamp carving challenge on Instagram hosted by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer that I have participated in for years. I completed a set of blocks to make different arrangements of a golden spiral and some mandalas that can be made of some of the pieces.

I have also completed some squares, leaves and flowers from my usual body of work and a few more golden geometry pieces. However, I had surgery on my neck and it is preventing me from carving or doing much art at the moment. I have one more block that I hope to carve before the end of the month, but healing is taking precedence. Meanwhile, enjoy the prints of what I have done so far.

Another 100 Mandalas Project

28 Saturday Sep 2024

Posted by Jeanette Clawson in 100 Day Project, Zendala

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100 Day Project, 100 Mandalas, 100 Zendala Challenge, Art, collage, Colorful art, handcarved blocks, handcarved stamps, Mandala, mandala art, meditation, mixed media, mixed media collage, mixed-media, stamping, Zendala, Zentangle, Zentangle Inspired Art, Zentangle Method

In the past I have done my own challenges during which I aspired to make mandalas (almost) every day for 100 days. I have been able to work on a mandala almost every day but a lot of my work takes more energy than I have on a given day. Frequently when I try to make a simple one it becomes complicated. So I once again am aspiring to make 100 mandalas by the end of the year, or make a whole lot and finish up a lot of works in progress. I started the project when there was a little more than 100 days left in the year.

Here’s an overview of week 1. I’m off to a good start! I did make 7 mandalas, but one is in the same sketchbook as the art supplies inventory rainbow so it’s not in the overall photo. Another one also appears twice as I combined a completed mandala with one that was in progress and not going well.

Sketchbook Revival class on art supply inventory taught by Janine Vangool of Uppercase Magazine

I hope you have a beautiful day!

100 Day Project Wrap Up

03 Monday Jun 2024

Posted by Jeanette Clawson in 100 Day Project, Art

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

100 Day Project, 100 Mandalas, Art, block print, block printing, block prints, blue block prints, botanical, botanical art, botanical collage, botanical prints, collage, colorful, Colorful art, floral art, floral still life, flower art, handcarved blocks, handcarved stamps, handmade cards, Mandala, seed of life, seed of life mandala

I finished the 100 day project again this year and felt it was my most successful one ever. This amazing set of torus mandala and seed of life mandala blocks and some coordinating center blocks will entertain me for years to come. Would you be interested in playing with one of the different sized sets? What size? Which combinations do you like best?

Here are the prints I made using these blocks and a page of sampler prints of my medium sized torus mandala. To see the development and samplers for the small and large torus mandalas and the seed of life mandalas see my previous post.

Still life pieces made by mixing and matching gelli printed papers and book pages snuck into all the mandala printing. I carved leaf and flower blocks and a block print template to make the different components. I plan to teach this as a class that can be easily modified for differing ability levels. I’m also thinking about putting these samples up for sale in a local gallery for $25 each. (details to follow)

I love to make cards with my blocks and here are some quick thank you cards I made. One of my goals was to print on fabric by the end of the 100 day project and I was successful in that I did make an attempt. It was a good learning experience and shows that I have plenty more to explore with block printing!

Let me know if you have a favorite piece or want prints of something from my Fine Art America product on demand shop. I don’t have everything uploaded so just let me know what you’re interested in and I will get it there for you.

Thanks for stopping by!

Mandala Exploration in the First 50+ Days

16 Tuesday Apr 2024

Posted by Jeanette Clawson in 100 Day Project, Art

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

100 Day Project, block print, block printing, blue block prints, handcarved blocks, handcarved stamps, Mandala, sacred geometry, Torus Mandala, Zentangle Inspired Art

Here is a selection of prints from the first 57 days of my 100 day project this year. I am exploring different mandalas. I started this exploration before the 100 day project started but I am really getting into it. I am having so much fun playing with block variations and enhancements.

I am specifically playing with torus mandalas and seed of life mandalas that are the basis for a lot of sacred geometry. The vesica piscis shape (the central overlapping portion of 2 circles – think ven diagram) that is created by the intersection of 2 seed of life mandalas provided an interesting design challenge. I also merged 2 seed of life mandalas without creating this shape in the blue print in the upper left corner.

You can see that I could not avoid my studio assistant. Apparently she really likes these prints. Her name is Soho. The upper left and middle photos have some prints that are only the vesica piscis portions of the seed of life overlapping block sets.

I’m going to create another set of blocks that are in between the big mandalas (4 inch radius of central circle) and small mandalas (2 inch radius of the central circle). And I hope to start printing on fabric.

My 100 Day Project for 2024 February

02 Saturday Mar 2024

Posted by Jeanette Clawson in 100 Day Project, Art

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all the colors, block print, block printing, block prints, colorful, Colorful art, full spectrum, handcarved blocks, handcarved stamps, Mandala, mandalas, primary colors, rainbow colors, secondary colors, Torus Mandala, Zentangle Inspired Art

I am continuing my exploration of block printing for my 100 day project. I have been so excited about exploring torus mandalas and now I’m playing with the seed of life mandala.

Torus Mandalas and Color Schemes

06 Tuesday Feb 2024

Posted by Jeanette Clawson in Art

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Art, block print, block prints, blue art, blue block prints, blue botanical prints, botanical prints, handcarved blocks, handcarved stamps, Mandala, meditation, tessellated block print, Torus Mandala, Versafine Clair Ink

I have continued my pattern play and have carved a variety of blocks to use in small and large torus mandalas. I have been having a lot of fun on Instagram following along with the Printer Solstice challenge hosted by Susana McDonnell. She provides a color combination prompt and I use various combinations of blocks and colors to create examples of the color scheme. Here I have posted some of my monochrome blue mandalas and some analogous yellow, green, blue mandalas. These are my favorite colors schemes if I have to pick, but I am enjoying all of the interesting combinations!

I am slowing uploading them to my Etsy shop as digital downloads for an extremely reasonable price. The larger mandalas are about 18 inches in diameter and the smaller ones are about 9 inches in diameter, but you can print them whatever size you want!

Yellow dahlia large torus mandala in analogous colors, yellow, green, blue. My followers on Instagram appreciated the photos with the blocks laid out to help see how these are constructed.

I have quite a few more printed but printing is a lot more fun that photographing and posting them. I hope you will check back in my Etsy shop to see if some new combinations of blocks and colors are available!

Making Art

05 Friday Nov 2021

Posted by Jeanette Clawson in 100 Days of Flowers, Art, Art on Exhibit

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

100 Days of Flowers, art heals, Art therapy, collage, floral still life, flower, Flower of the Day, flower painting, flowers, gelli print, gelli prints, handcarved stamps, mixed-media, stencilgirl products, still life

I haven’t posted in a long time because I had some health problems and I have been busy making art. I have sold more this year than ever before. One of the pieces that sold has also been selected to be part of a calendar. It is for Mental Health America (MHA) of Sheboygan County. It was the culmination of the 100 days of flowers. It is called Organic Geometry: Garden Mandala. This has been a motif I have been exploring since I participated in the 100 days of flowers and I am including some other examples of this series. I have also done a deep dive into carving stamps. I have carved a lot of flower and leaf stamps and I love to stamp/paint them and cut them out to make collages. I did a few still life pieces like this and plan to do more. The backgrounds and some of the leaves come from some of the beautiful stencils from Stencilgirl Products using a Gelli plate. That combination has provided me with hours of entertainment. It is one of the best antidepressants I have found.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by. I would love to hear from you. You can find me on Instagram @jeanette.clawson.