Stamp Carving 101

Finding Images: How to Search Online for Legal, Free Images to Carve

"But I can't draw!" is a familiar refrain. But you don't have to draw... there are millions of images out there that other people have already created that can be transferred to your carving block, and they're all just an Internet search away! If you're great at drawing your own images—on a computer or on paper—go for it. If you're like most of us, though, you'll need help.

Before I go on any further, I should mention that most images online do have copyright protections. While carving a stamp of Mickey Mouse may seem harmless for a letterbox, and you could even argue it's free publicity for Disney, they still have the right to sue you for copyright infringement. But logically, it seems absolutely absurd that Disney will hunt you down and sue because you carved a stamp of Mickey Mouse. You aren't profiting from using their image, you aren't mass-producing it and even if the Disney corporation somehow discovered that you carved a personal stamp of Mickey Mouse, they probably aren't going to care. Probably. Technically, if you want to make sure you're in good legal standing, though, you'd have to ask permission to use it—assuming there's nowhere on the website that gives you permission already.

The Internet has countless free images without copyright protections, though, so let's find some of those.

1. Go to your search engine of choice

I like Bing, so that's what I'm using for screenshots, but you can do the same type of thing with Google or whatever search engine you prefer.

2. Search for what you want to carve

I have a thing for turtles, so let's look for a good turtle I can carve. Run a search for the word 'turtle'.

To increase the chances of finding images that are legal to use, try searching for 'turtle free', 'turtle royalty free' or something to that effect. This will not guarantee you will find free, legal images, but it might slant the search results in that direction.

3. Change to image search

The initial search for turtle displays some images, but there's a dedicated 'image search' available to. Click on that to focus the search to just images.

4. Change image type to line drawings

We've got a lot of turtle photos here, but none of these are going to be easy to carve. We want high-contrast line drawings. There are a lot of options to narrow down the image search, including a "type" option that let's us pick "line drawings." Select that option.

5. Select license type

Bing can filter out images based on the type of license associated with them. Each of the options will return different images so you might try out a few of them, but "Free to share and use" typically provides the most results so it would be a good place to start.

If you want to modify an image, you'll need to use one of the options that allow modifications (or those that are in the public domain).

One caveat: These results are automated and to make certain your use of an image is 100% legal, you'll still have to check the website it came from to verify that the license Bing thinks applies to an image is the correct one.

6. Select a drawing!

Scroll through the resulting list for a drawing that looks within your skill set. As a beginner carver, you'll want to find a simple image. As your skill level grows and you gain confidence, try picking more challenging images to carve.

If you want to insure that your use of the image is legal, click through to the website with the image for a terms of use page or contact information for permission.

I, for one, think turtles with bowties are cool, so I saved a copy of it locally to my computer.

7. Modify drawing (optional)

To really personalize an image, you can modify it with photo-editing software such as PhotoShop. You can add a flower that wasn't there, or remove that bowtie on the turtle if you didn't like it. You can clean up parts that might include shading that is difficult to carve. Editing images is outside of the scope of this tutorial, but you can find lots of information about such things online.

Another option to modify the drawing is to add text. If you're carving a signature stamp, add your trailname to the stamp. If you're planting a letterbox somewhere, include the name of the park where you'll be hiding it. It'll give your stamp that extra wow factor and let people know that it's truly a 1-of-a-kind stamp!

For my drawing, I added a sombrero because what self-respecting tortuga wouldn't be wearing a sombrero? And a flashy trailname because a turtle with a sombrero should be nothing if not flashy!

I found the image of the sombrero just like I did with the turtle then merged the two images, and then added the text.

Tip!

Although text is a great way to personalize a stamp, it's one of the hardest things you can carve. People know what letters are supposed to look like so even the tiniest of flaws will leap off the page and smack you across the face. Images are more subjective and while you might see an unplanned nick as a mistake, others may very well think it was deliberate.

For your first stamps, you should stay far away from anything with text—even large, simple fonts are surprisingly difficult to do well.