purpleponyart: Today's creative endeavour

Purple Pony Art (

purpleponyart) wrote,
@ 2008-01-13 14:00:00

Current mood:	creative
Entry tags:	birds, crafts, printing

Today's creative endeavour - amateur printmaking!

A few years ago my ACAD friends and I became enamored with printmaking. I've always loved rubber stamps, but these were pretty hard core ideas - using resist, chemicals and big rollers. Woo! I dabbled with some simple styrofoam printing, but of course styrofoam isn't very permanent as a template.

I bought a carving kit and a piece of linoleum from the bookstore, and acquired tubes of Speedball ink ($3 on the clearance shelf at Michaels, yay!), and some carving rubber. No craft before its time however, and yesterday I finally sat down and started into the carving rubber.

	I sat down and stared at the 4x6" piece of rubber and all my anticipation was replaced with fears of a blank canvas. I should do something small, I thought. Something not too complex. What could be small...aha! ACEOs. I cut a 2.5"x4" piece, marked off a quarter inch on each side and cut little handles into the ends. It was easy to draw on the surface.
	After a while I realized how easy it would be to cut the wrong area, so I shaded in the areas I wanted to be printed.
	I have a Speedball carver with two nibs and the one I got from ACAD. The ACAD one was meant to cut through lino, so it glided smoothly along like butter. The Speedball nibs seemed very dull in comparison, but I imagine they don't want you to cut yourself :-) It took about two hours for me to carve the block. Originally there was going to be a pattern in the two corner leaves, but I left that out, as well as the worms in the robin's mouth. It was hard to cut around some things, like the little corner dots as well.

A few quick checks with a water soluble marker showed areas where I needed to carve more or forgot to carve.

Finally, getting down to the actually printing. I squirted out a dime sized amount of red and purple Speedball ink onto a styrofoam tray and rolled my brayer through it, then applied to the stamp. The first one came out too inky, the next one was quite nice. I think the third and fourth ones are the best. I probably could have used more ink, but the others are still usable for ACEO fodder.

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	mrs_dragon 2008-01-13 10:17 pm UTC (link)
	Oooh! Love this! ^_^ (Reply to this)(Thread)

	purpleponyart 2008-01-14 02:40 am UTC (link)
	Thanks! It's such a great little craft...not too messy either :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	mrs_dragon 2008-01-14 03:40 am UTC (link)
	I miss block printing so much. I took a class and fell in love. And then moved into a teeny tiny apartment. But I really need to get my Gocco up and running before I moved into other printing mediums. ahem But maybe later this year. The whole process is just awesome. : ) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	calzephyr77 2008-01-14 04:16 am UTC (link)
	Oh cool! I would love to see what your Gocco can do. The first time I heard about it was when they were discontinuing it. I didn't know if I should buy one or not. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	artcarheather 2008-04-12 04:24 pm UTC (link)
	I checked into this recently and the Gocco lives on. The company claims that even if they do close they have another party that will continue the product line. Makes sense as every home in Japan has one. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	purpleponyart 2008-04-14 11:07 pm UTC (link)
	Oh cool! Thanks so much for the tip :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	artcarheather 2008-04-16 12:10 am UTC (link)
	The store I'm looking at buying from did say that they had to import them from Canada. Here is their site: http://www.wetpaintart.com/ I have found this to be a great store to work with and would feel confident ordering from them. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	fledchen 2008-01-14 01:58 am UTC (link)
	spiffy! (Reply to this)

msjudi
2008-01-14 02:40 am UTC (link)

I love block printing. I found the art a few years ago, and desperate to carve my own stamps (I refuse to use someone else's work in my own, therefore I won't use commercial rubber stamps for anything except little cards and such I send to family and friends), I bought supplies and books to teach me how to use them. Late last year, having so many self-carved stamps, I finally had to build floor-to-ceiling shelving in my studio to hold all of them. ;)

This print you took is an excellent first attempt!!

(Reply to this)(Thread)

msjudi
2008-01-14 02:46 am UTC (link)

BTW, if you haven't tried it, yet, look for Master Carve blocks... they carve smoothly and easily, don't crumble and give a clean, clear impression. If you find that your lino blades dull (and they will) there's a little product I invested in that allows me to sharpen the blades, rather than throwing them out and buying new ones. I can find you the website, if you're interested. Also, if you use a hairdryer to blow warm air on your lino before carving, the surface will cut much easier.

Finally, there is paper-thin, self-adhesive lino you can buy that you can carve and then mount onto a curved or fully rounded surface, like a brayer. Ranger also makes a brayer with removable heads that you can carve for continuous stamps.

This is an incredibly addictive technique. ;)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	purpleponyart 2008-01-14 04:20 am UTC (link)
	I only have Speedball stuff, so I don't know what else is out there. I'll have to try the local art store. Michaels doesn't have much of a selection. Any and all websites, advice and whatnot, throw my way! There's no such thing as learning too little. That self-adhesive lino sounds really tempting too! (Reply to this)(Parent)

purpleponyart
2008-01-14 04:19 am UTC (link)

Store bought stamps are so uninspiring. I have some horse ones, but that's about it. After a while I just couldn't justify the dineros. Sometimes I think all these crafty things are meant to prey on susceptible people ;-) Particularly scrapbooking. Your collection sounds really impressive! Just took a peek at your DevArt site and man, it's colourful (I love colour :-))

Thanks for the encouragement too. I'm sure my next one will be horsey :-)

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	dracothrope 2008-02-14 06:47 pm UTC (link)
	O_O I'm so confused. It looks like you cut into where the lines are, but the prints came out showing all the parts that look like they're carved out. Did you use something between the rubber and the final product like a mold or something? (Reply to this)(Thread)

	purpleponyart 2008-02-14 11:45 pm UTC (link)
	Hi there :-) I'm not sure how to explain it...any part that I wanted white, I cut away. I could have made it a negative image, with the bird, branches and leaves white, now that you mention it. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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