announcing my newest design team members

it is with great pleasure that i announce two new design team members to the roc nicholas rubber stamp design team.  i hope you'll give a warm welcome to gemma maggs and sue waters.  i am positive we will see some creative and unique pieces of art using my rubber stamps over the coming months.

gemma

gemma is welsh born, but resides in york, england with her fiancé and one poodle.  her profession is a criminologist and tries to keep up with the latest findings, and she is a huge fan of crime fiction.  she is self employed and works from home but states her art room is her retreat.  she finds great relaxation when she is in there.  gemma says she tries to craft everyday, even if it something small like coloring in stamped images while she watches tv. 

gemma’s other love, besides family, is crafting.  she adores stamping, mixed media, altered art, art journaling and anything else remotely crafty.  she jokes, “if it stands still long enough, it will be painted, sprayed with inks and glued!”
gemma admits she has always been crafty and was encouraged as a child to try all sorts of things.  she credits her love of creating to her mother and grandmother.  she can be found attending as many arts and crafts workshops as she can go to.  she feels she has picked up a lot of new techniques that she can use and feels this has been her greatest learning tool.
gemma started her rubber stamping collection as a teenager.  she is fond of christmas and began her obsession with rubber stamping by making christmas cards for friends and family.  she loves how versatile stamps are, as well as how varied they are in their styles.  she loves to create backgrounds with stamps because it gives such depth and texture to her work.

her favorite “go to” item when stamping is her black archival ink pad.  she loves it because it is waterproof and permanent.  her latest obsession is colored pencils and her favorite brand is faber cast ell polychromes, followed by car an d’ache pablo pencils.   she has a fondness for gelatos, texture paste and crackle paste when used with stencils or to add dimension to an area.

gemma states, “Inspiration is all around us. I've taken photographs of old doors with cracked paint, and rusty hinges just because I loved the worn look. You will find something that inspires you wherever you look.  Books, magazines and websites are great for inspiration and when you put your own ideas with it, you sometimes get something fabulous!  I've met a lot of very good friends through our love of craft/art, and we all draw inspiration from one another.  We all share our knowledge with lots of good ideas thrown in.”   
gemma feels her biggest accomplishment to day has been being accepted to the roc nicholas rubber stamp design team.  she says, “I'm so excited to begin this journey, and am looking forward to seeing where it takes me. I'm so happy, I feel like a kid at Christmas..!

sue

sue lives in land o’ lakes, florida, just 30 miles north of where she was born in dunedin.  sue  is proud to be a native of florida and states, “ my mom’s family helped to settle dunedin in the 1860’s and my dad helped to settle palm harbor/tarpon springs in the 1860’s.”   she is married to the love of her life for nearly 27 years.  sue reports, “ we don’t have kids, but (we) have a fur-daughter cat named savannah.  she is an old lady now, at 90 in human years, so she sleeps a lot but she is our baby!”  after many years in retail sue is now a homemaker.
in her spare time, sue loves to cook, do mixed media, art journaling, card making and scrapbooking.  she recently renewed an old love of sewing.  she admits to being arty for as long as she can remember.  she says her style has evolved over the years.  she admits, “ i pick and choose who’s style i like and incorporate them into my own art.”  sue’s greatest learning tool has been to embrace her imperfections.  she has learned to say “it’s ok” even if it doesn’t meet her idea of perfect.

sue adores rubber stamps because they are so varied.  she likes how you can find cute stamps, realistic stamps, or weird stamps, and this makes the possibilities endless.  she jokes, “ all you need is a large back account to support your habit!”  she likes to mix and match stamps and put her own spin on what ever she is making.

sue finds inspiration on pinterest, blogs, everyday life and her own ideas.  she admits that she is a huge tim holts fan.  she can’t live without her tim holtz distress inks, but also loves cyan reavely’s delusions spray inks and paint, and dina wakely’s heavy body acrylic paints.  sue says she loves sharpies, colored pens, prismacolor pencils, and caran d’ache neocolors.

sue makes time to do art every day.  she tells people, “ it’s what helps keep me sane. or as sane as i can be!”  she feels her greatest accomplishment to date is being part of the roc nicholas rubber stamp design team.