Monday, April 27, 2015

Stamp your feet stamp your hands stamp your everything

I've been inspired by other people's stamp making, after a few years of playing with mixed media art and seeing stamps that other people have made. I have a background of dabbling in printmaking, so if I'm honest, to begin with I was a bit snobby about making your own stamps. I thought they were the dumbed down version of relief printing. I also am a bit averse to using other people's stamps in my work because it doesn't feel like mine. I know some people use heaps of stamps and love them, and create great effects using them, I don't have any problem with that, it's just a personal preference for me. But anyway, to cut a long story short, I felt the need to try making some stamps, and around the same time I rediscovered a very soft, rubber carving plate I had bought for printmaking - and voila! the project was born.
To start with I used 'lino' and cut it into smallish squares, using standard lino cutting tools. Then I swapped to the rubber plate and cut that up, and oh my goodness, a world of difference. So much softer! My hands did not ache from the cutting! Quicker to do as well. I really really recommend not using lino if you want to make quick stamps. Another technique I've heard of is using just standard white erasers, which seems great - cheap and accessible, but perhaps limited to their standard sizes. I used a fairly standard and cheapish water based printmaking ink to prig with. Next round I'm gong to try gouache (because I have more colours in that) and slightly watered down acrylic to see how that goes. Once I got started on printing it was endlessly fun and I could have kept going for days, it was really very fun. You can see in the image below how the stamps came out on white, or Kraft brown recycled envelopes. I like both. In fact I still have the project materials out in my kitchen because I feel like 'any day now' I might whip up another batch of envelopes, or maybe some letter paper. As a bonus, I'm using a combination of these shapes to form my new logo for art therapy work (recently graduated). I thoroughly recommend stamping up a storm.

6 comments:

MichaelC said...

Nice effect! And so simple. The free form shapes emphasise the organic qualities of the flowers and foliage.

J said...

Thanks Michael :) Yes it really is simple and very fun.

BSharp said...

Can I comission one with b# on it for my next lot of pots ??

BSharp said...

Can I comission one with b# on it for my next lot of pots ??

J said...

Sure thing Bsharp. Do you want a stamp to indent into the clay on the bottom of the pots? If so I'd make it out of sculpty or a similar oven baked thing probably as it's tougher and will provide more resistance when pushing into the clay. Otherwise if you wanted to try stamping images onto the clay with slip I'd go with a rubber stamp.

BSharp said...

I was thinking the first option! My own little monogram.. :) but the 2nd sounds cool too and may e easier with the materials to hand. I can sap you for a pottery item.