Eraser stamp tutorial – Part 5

Here is the fifth post in the eraser stamp carving tutorial. I am not an expert on this subject, but hopefully my trials and errors will help you get off to a good start. I’ve broken things down into the following bites:

1: carving medium, i.e. erasers etc.
2: the tools you need to carve your stamps.
3: methods of transferring your design to the medium for carving.
4: inks.
5: carving.

It’s finally time to carve your stamp! You’ve got your lino cutter and an eraser with a design on it. It is quite easy to carve a stamp. And if you much it up? It’s just an eraser, chuck it in the bin and try again!

Right, start off by deciding (if you haven’t already) what part of the stamp will show up coloured and what will be white/not coloured. Then cut around the design so you know where the edge of your stamp is. Use the smallest blade for this.

If you can, it is best to make the carving in as few cuts as possible to avoid ‘seams’ in the lines which may make the cuts look ‘jagged’. Note how I cut around each petal in one go. Oh and feel free to add stuff to (or rather cut away from) your stamp, like I’ve done in this example.

When possible, use a larger blade to carve so you can cut away larger chunks at a time, saving time. When cutting, cut away from the lines to avoid ruining the stamp if your knife slips.

Before you start carving the ‘fluff’ around the stamp, have a look at it and see if maybe some of it can simply be cut off, like in the picture above. You are often able to cut off corners like this. To, literally cut corners and not have to carve so much. Also, this way the back of your stamp is more similar in size to your actual stamp which makes it easier to align if you’re doing repeats of the same stamp or with other stamps.

When you think your stamp is done, do a test to make sure you haven’t missed anything. Or maybe there are tiny bits you want to change. Notice how there is ink on the eraser outside of the actual stamp? If it doesn’t show up when you stamp it, don’t worry about it. But if you are going to stamp on fabric it is probably a good idea to remove as much of this as you can because the stamp will ‘sink’ deeper into the fabric.

Now your stamp is done, have fun playing with it! Experiment with different inks (if available) and surfaces. Make patterns. Use it as a temporary ‘tattoo’. Seriously, if you don’t stamp on yourself by accident, do it on purpose! ;-)

Now, here’s one I made earlier: have some ice cream!

I hope this series of stamp tutorials was useful to you. And I hope you’ll share some pictures of your stamps!