Stampstracts: A Day with Kae Pea by Judi Kauffman for The Queen’s Ink

From the moment I arrived at The Queen’s Ink on October 15 I knew it was going to be a special day. The sun was streaming into the classroom, the students were choosing their spots at the long tables, and Kae Pea, owner of RubberMoon Art Stamps, was surveying the scene with a big grin on her face, greeting each of us with a quiet word or two, ready to start the day-long workshop!

We’d gathered from far and near – Both Washingtons (Seattle and DC), New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland – with one thing in mind: A day with Kae Pea, a day to experiment with the new Stampstracts, to play and learn, stamp and paint. And that’s exactly what we did! It alternated between demo time and time at our tables, with some shopping time (of course…).

Kae Pea is a gifted teacher, a fabulous balance of low-key style and high energy. She told us the story of Stampstracts – small images she designed thinking they’d be perfect for abstract art (and that, they are) but almost immediately began to see as components for building animals, plants, scenes and more. As an example, she showed how to turn long triangles and circles with radiating lines into an owl!

Each of us got a present (a zippered case with three cling-mounted stamps to take home). Each table had a complete set of 32 Stampstracts images to share and there were more at the demo table. We worked in black and white for a while to get a sense of how the stamps could be combined, and then, after a second demo, started stamping and painting on a 3” x 5” Stampbord, saving the 6” x 6” Stampboard (cradled) and 6” x 6” Gessobord for later in the day.

It got very quiet as we worked, but every now and then there were excited exclamations – ‘Look at this!” someone would say, when they saw how another person had created a Ferris wheel, a bird, a winter scene, a snail… And the owls, each one unique.

I had to leave after lunch. We’ll post photos from the rest of the day as soon as we receive them from a student who was there until the end of the class. Meanwhile, here are more photos of students at work and of Kae Pea’s samples, followed by a gallery of 25 photos showing the students’ morning projects.

 

Here are photos of the morning projects from each student, so many ideas our heads were spinning.

But first, I want to take a moment to thank Kae Pea for an amazing day, Patti Euler for making the event possible, and Terry Quinn who kept things running smoothly ‘out front’.