Alligator Ink: October 2014

Mod Swap

10 Cent Pistol (LTC # 123)

I love Aiphid's Mod swaps. They give me a chance to just carve and play with an image I've been dying to do. This time I picked The Black Keys as my subject. They are an Indie rock group with a hint of blues and soul. I carved an image of a concert poster of theirs that I love (I'm a pool hall chick myself), named it after one of their popular songs and am including the lyrics to one of their songs that the poster reminds me of.

"Girl Is On My Mind"

Girl is on my mind,
Girl is on my mind,
Try to ignore it,
I try to unwind,
But she is on my mind,

Eyes are in my eyes,
Eyes are in my eyes,
Where I've been,
How time flies,
When she is in my eyes,

See her standin' there,
See her standin' there,
She's gentle now and she,
Takes great care,
See her standin' there,

Hold me close to you,
Hold me close to you,
Not one thing that I,
Would not do if you,
Would hold me close to you, alright,
Yeah!

Girl is on my mind,
She is on my mind,
Try to ignore it,
Try to unwind,
But she is on my mind,
Ooh-ooh~ooh,
Ooh~yeah,
Ooh~ooh~ooh-ooh-ooh,
Ooh~ooh~oh~yeah~ooh.

This card took me two days. One to carve and the other full day to put together. I loved this image so much that I really wanted to do it right. I started off laying out all of the supplies I planned on using. Then I narrowed down the base paper from 4 different papers and started layering on 5 layers of distress inks to the paper to give it the smoky pool hall feel I was after. Then I stamped it, inked the edges of the base and pulled out some copic markers and distress markers. I used the distress for her dress, the couch, and the blue jeans. I wanted the blue jeans to have a washed out feel and the only was to do that was with the distress markers. I then added some brighter accents with colic markers, including making the beer bottles green to give it an authentic bar feel. As the final steps got closer I held the colored version up against six different background papers. I settled on a plain maroon one with no designs. Although my patterned papers are always fun to work with I really didn't want to draw attention away from the carve on this one. To finish, I glued the cards to the background paper and layered on the Mod Podge. Thank you Aiphid for another swap that allowed me to produce a card that screams Seattle Bound.