The Art of Stamping

Stamping With Style

The splash of color on these loons makes the image seem three-dimensional and pop from the page

Anyone can slap some ink on a stamp and get the image to a piece of paper. But it's not difficult to go that extra mile to make a stamp image really pop! And that's what this section is all about. We'll cover several ways to make your images come alive and move your two dimensional stampings into the third dimension: Color.

Adding color before the stamp-in: Tips and tricks to add colors before the stamp-in
Adding color after the stamp-in: Other color can be added after a stamp has already done its job—this section will show you how
Multiple stampings: But back to the stamping, since that's what this webpage is all about.
Draw backgrounds around your stampings: Why stop now? Turn a stamp image into a real fiesta of color!
Overlapping stamps: Stamps that work together to create a single image.
Combining techniques: Here we'll cover concepts on combining several techniques already covered.

Adding Color Before the Stamp-In

This process involves putting several colors onto the stamp before the actual stamp-in. The easiest way to do this is using colored markers. Draw the colors where you want them to appear directly onto the stamp, then stamp away. In a pinch, ink pads will also work quite well—the rule of thumb being the smaller the ink pad, the easier it is to work with. Below are additional tips to get you started:

This stamping was made using nothing more than the techniques described in this section

While coloring large stamps such as this, breathe heavily on the stamp before stamping to ensure the ink hasn't dried during the time it took to color

Breathe heavily on the stamp just before stamping in. Sometimes it can take awhile to fully color an intricate stamp, and by the time you've applied the last color, the first color has already dried. Breathing heavily on the stamp just before stamping in moistens the dried ink again so the color will transfer to paper.
If the stamp contains text, color it in a different color. Many simple stamps contain an image with small bit of text near it—usually bearing the location where the box is located or the name of the letterbox. Coloring the image and text with two different colors can really go a long way towards a beautiful image!
Apply colors from inside out. Particularly for large stamps. If you colored the edges of the stamp first, you might accidentally touch or mess up work you've already done while going past it to other colors in the interior of the stamp. When you do work on the edges, orient the the stamp so the edge you're working on is on the right (if you're right-handed) or on the left (if you're left-handed).
Apply the lighter colors first, and finish with the darker ones. This technique is especially useful for shading. Let's say you have a stamp that's supposed to be a bird with a light blue color. To shade it, you'd color the entire bird with a light blue marker. Then color progressively smaller areas of the bird darker using dark blue, dark purple, and possibly black. Areas of the bird that are highlighted typically have been carved out from the stamp, so they'll appear white adding to the shading effect even more.
Objects become lighter the more distant they are. The next time you see a series of mountains on the horizon, notice the closest ones have vibrant colors while the mountains in the distance tend to lighten in color the farther away they are. Use this information—and exaggerate it—in coloring your stamps. If the stamp has a duck floating in a puddle of water, color the water closest to the viewer with a deep, dark blue (or even purple) while that at the back of the puddle is a light blue. Use a dark color where the shadow of the bird would fall on the water.
If you have only ink pads rather than markers available, there's still hope! First, what kind of ink pads do you have? The really small ones in the shape of a square or a cat's eye? Those are best for multi-color work. Use the sharpest corners available to do detailed coloring. As a rule of thumb, start from the inside and work your way out, start with large color areas towards more detailed areas, and start with dark colors working your way to lighter ones. It's okay to get the wrong color ink on part of the stamp if you haven't colored that part yet. Just wipe off the excess ink with a tissue before starting with the next color.
Several ink mediums can be used in conjunction with each other. For large areas, go ahead and use those large, bulky ink pads. Then switch to markers for more detailed coloring.
Combining colors can be very effective—or not! Most of the time, you'll want to make sure you're applying color to a "clean" stamp—a stamp wiped clean of inks previous letterboxers have left behind. However, you can sometimes get wonderful affects by not doing this. Other times, the result can be quite horrible. I once found a nice stamp of a bird—but not really the sort that lends itself to multi-colored stamping. However, I could tell the previous stamper used a nice, bright pink. So I stamped in using purple, which blended into a beautiful purplish-pink color I'll probably never be able to repeat even if I wanted to. Other combinations haven't turned out quite as well, though.

The color in this image was added after the stamping was done

Jack's yellow hat stands out because of the black outline created during the stamping

This hermit crab was colored in with red and orange to give it a cartoon-ish feel

Adding Color After the Stamp-In

Some colors—especially yellow, but equally applicable to all of the lightest colors—don't show up well against a white background, which is what most of us use for our logbooks. Sometimes, the best way to get this color in is to add it after you stamp in. The stamp on the left—when I first stamped it—didn't look too hot. I used only a black ink pad for stamping that turned out plain and dull. So I took the liberty of coloring in the white space to give it a more color. And the results were great! These coloring tips should get you going on your own masterpieces:

Wait for the impression to dry before coloring in the image. This reduces having two colors bleed—which is especially noticeable if you've got a very dark color next to a very light color.
Outline light colors with a dark one. This gives your stamp a cartoon look, but makes the light color much more noticeable. Let's say you find a stamp of Jack. You know, of Jack in the Box fame. This is a terrific example where you'd be better off coloring the outline of Jack's hat black, stamp into your logbook, then color the inside yellow. Exactly how you work this depends on the how the stamp was carved. If the stamp was carved where the hat is hollow (such as the one I carved shown to the right), use black to color the hat (or rather the hat's edges) before stamping in. Then after stamping in, color in the hat with yellow. However, if Jack's hat was NOT hollow, it's trickier. You can color the hat yellow, stamp in, then draw the black border around the edges of the hat to help define it.
Color from the inside of an area outward. In the example of Jack's hat, you'll want to color in the yellow from the inside of the hat towards the edge. That way, you can color up to the edge of the hat without worrying if the black ink from the edge mixes with the yellow from the marker. The yellow won't show up against the black. If you started from the edge of the hat and colored inward, the black ink from the edge would smear into the yellow you're coloring. Whenever the tip of your yellow pen crosses onto the black edge of the hat, be sure to "wipe off" the pen's tip before putting it back into the interior of the hat again.
Adding color after stamping in can be done at any time. Don't feel pressured to color in your stamp while it's raining around you and time is ticking. One of the benefits in adding color after stamping in is that you can add it at any time after stamping in—even days or weeks later!
You can add dark colors after stamping as well! While most of this discussion has been about light colors like yellow, any part of a stamp that's been carved out will appear white after stamping in (assuming you are stamping onto white paper). You can color any color into these spaces! In one stamp I found, I colored in ALL of the white areas left over, and the stamp now looks more like a mural than a stamp. (Which could be good or bad depending on if that's the look you were going for.)
Turning stamp images into cartoons. This technique works especially well for cartoonish-looking images. Use a black ink pad to stamp the image, then color in the white spaces like a coloring book. The result should be a very cartoonish-looking character.

Multiple Stampings

This school of fish was created with a single stamp used multiple times in different colors

Sometimes, you can get a really neat effect simply by stamping the same image several times. For the seascape to the right, I took a small, plain fish and stamped it in three times with different colors—all next to each other. Presto, a school of fish! For even more interest, I filled in the white space of two fish with a yellow marker and drew in bubbles coming from their mouths rising towards the surface. On another stamp (not shown), I stamped in a starfish three times, but used different colors and turned the stamp upsidedown and sideways to make it look like three distinctly different starfish. (It was one of those stamps that don't really have an "up".)

The Murder At Gabriel Park! series includes a footprint as a stamp for one of the boxes. Instead of stamping in the image once, use the footprint several times to make it look like someone walked or ran across the page.

A stamp of a single footprint used here appears as if someone walked or ran across the page

This tutorial can't cover every potential use of multiple stampings, so use your imaginations! Study a stamp before you stamp and figure out if it's a good candidate for multiple stampings.

Draw Backgrounds Around Your Stampings

This dolphin stands out because of the background drawn around the image

Many moons ago I hid a series of nine stamps, all with an underwater theme: An orca, dolphin, crab, seahorse, jellyfish, starfish, regular fish, and so on. In a fit of inspiration, I turned them into a mural. I drew little wavy lines at the top of the page with a blue marker to represent the surface of the ocean. A dolphin is jumping out of the water, fish are swimming under the surface, a crab creeps around the bottom on the ground. I drew little bubbles coming from the mouth of the fish floating to the surface.

If I wanted to get even more elaborate, I could have drawn shipwrecks in the background, a rescue helicopter overhead, kids swimming in the surf, divers checking out a coral reef—any number of possibilities. It doesn't even have to be limited to drawing, either. I could have cut out pictures of shipwrecks and other underwater objects to paste into my mural. Or a combination of drawing and pasting pictures.

Your imagination is the limit! The technique isn't much different than what a scrapbooker uses for their photos and other prized possessions, except in this case, it's the stampings that are the center of attention.

Overlapping Stamps

This stamping of Zorro was created using two stamps, one stamped directly on top of the other

This is an interesting method of adding some extra color to your stamps. With two or more carefully constructed stamps, the imprints can be designed to overlap each other where each stamp takes a different color. This Zorro stamp is such an example.

One stamp, representing a sunset and extra depth to the famous Z, I colored red and stamped away. Then I inked a second stamp black and stamped directly onto the red image. By itself, the Zorro stamp is pretty good, but with the red background—WOW!

You should stamp dark colors onto light ones if you don't want the colors to look like they've blended. The greater the contrast, the more it will look like two different colors side-by-side rather than two, overlapping colors.

The most interesting use I saw of using multiple, overlapping stamps was a blank one! The stamping was a scene overlooking a tropical beach with a good, solid border around the scene. I inked the back of the stamp—completely uncarved—with a bright orange color on the top half and a light blue color on the bottom half and stamped away. Then I inked the front of the stamp with black which I stamped on top of the first stamping. Instead of a white background, the scene now had a beautiful orange sunset, light blue waters, and black palm trees that looked like silhouettes, none of which looked drawn in afterwards with a colored marker. It was a wonderful effect, and it used the plain, boring back side of the stamp. (I hesitate to post the image—though it is nothing short of astonishing—since I didn't carve it and don't have permission to display it here.)

These birds combine multiple stamping techniques to create images that seem to jump off the page

Combining Techniques

There's nothing preventing you from using multiple techniques at the same time. If you noticed in the Jack In the Box stamp shown earlier, you'll see the eyes, mouth, and nose were colored directly onto the stamp before stamping, while the hat was colored in with yellow after the stamping. The school of fish shown earlier were stamped multiple times, then two were also colored in later. The birds on the right were mostly colored directly onto the stamp, but notice the beak of the toucan and the feet of both birds were colored in later.

Not all stamps work equally well for various techniques. Before stamping in, consider the possibilities of various stamping techniques and how they might work together to create an imagine that will all but jump off the page!

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