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Read Thread: Hand Carved Stamps

Re: Hand Carved Stamp
Board: Stamp Carving and Mounting
Reply to: #136164 by Don and Gwen
Sep 30, 2007 1:46pm
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Lots of b/w clip art images have shading. How do I make shading show up in the stamped image. What techniques do you use? If I leave it solid rubber, then it is all solid colored ink. If I carve some out, it tends to be striped, liney, or dottie. Suggestions, please? BS
Re: Hand Carved Stamp
Board: Stamp Carving and Mounting
Reply to: #136206 by Butterfly Suzy
Sep 30, 2007 4:34pm
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*If I carve some out, it tends to be striped, liney, or dottie.*

That's the nature of any type of artwork made from pressing an inked, carved surface against paper. Think of currency, blockprints from linoleum, engravings. There is a certain amount of artistic vision required to render shadows in a carving. Use the lines, stripes or dots to enhance the stamp - I think it looks nice that way!

Amazing things can be done with carvings! Check out this page - this press prints some lovely images: http://www.indianhillpress.com/gallery.html
Re: Hand Carved Stamp
Board: Stamp Carving and Mounting
Reply to: #136243 by Goldberry
Sep 30, 2007 5:45pm
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Great link! Thanks for sharing.

Violet Thistle
Re: Hand Carved Stamp
Board: Stamp Carving and Mounting
Reply to: #136243 by Goldberry
Sep 30, 2007 8:08pm
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Goldberry, thanks. What you said makes sense. And, those images are nice. I still think in b/w though. Color images make it harder for me to see the stuff needed to carve out. Well, and it could be that I just like the contrast of black and white a lot (in photos and carvings) or blue and white or ... two color. But, I do see what you mean on the artistic nature of the lines and dots. Mine are just not yet ... artistically arranged! Just dottie or liney! +Peace! BS
Re: Hand Carved Stamp
Board: Stamp Carving and Mounting
Reply to: #136206 by Butterfly Suzy
Oct 1, 2007 3:01am
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Quote Lots of b/w clip art images have shading. How do I make shading show up in the stamped image. What techniques do you use?


In general, I don't use that image!

There's a fundamental difference between "grayscale" and "B&W", but even a lot of truly B&W images have "shading" that consists of zillions of tiny lines, dots, or crosshatching. You can see the effect on some store-bought stamps, too. Somewhere between difficult and impossible to get to look right when hand-carving a stamp. It's a skill that I not only have not perfected, I really haven't even tried yet.

I once read some stuff on the Carving Consorteum website that involved using sandpaper, I think. There were some images there that were amazing.

One idea that I may take a shot at sometime: The idea of making white dots with a non-sharp piece of wire works so well and so easily (I have used it several times) that I've been thinking of trying it for a shading effect. Basically, take a straight pin and cut the point off and file it flat so it's not slipping into the rubber but rather punching a tiny bit of rubber ahead of it. It sorta compresses a bit of rubber the same size as the thickness of the pin down into the rubber, and it stays there rather than popping back up to flush with the surface. Then use this pin to punch a zillion dots in an area to sort of "lighten" that area from totally black. The more you punch, the lighter the area will look. With practice it may be possible to create different shades using either more pin pricks or different size pins. And to demonstrate real skill one could create a graduated shading, something that gets darker from one place to another by carefully spreading the dots.

Another method that would probably be less work would be crosshatching using a Stadtler 1V. You can make a very tiny groove with a Stadtler 1V. Make a whole bunch of them, parallel to each other. Then come back and make a whole bunch more at 90 degrees to the first -- or, for a different effect, not at 90 degrees but at some other angle. Cutting the second set of grooves is kinda odd because you're bouncing across the first set and gettiing all these little bits of rubber rather than one long hair. When done, the effect is a lot of little black dots in neat rows. Again, with skill you should be able to vary the shading by varying how close the little grooves are to each other.