hand carved stamp tutorial (aka eraser carving)

I originally posted this tutorial at Flickr, and people really seem to find it helpful - so what better way to start my new blog than to include it here!

What you'll need:

• A carving tool, like the Speedball brand shown. Available at most art and craft stores, often with the lino cutting supplies.
• Carving material. Some people start out with small plastic erasers, or there are several brands of rubber stamping material you can buy. My favourite is the pink "Speedy-Stamp" made by Speedball. It's a little more expensive than the beige material shown, but is less likely to crumble.
• An Exacto knife. Not absolutely necessary, but handy.

Now decide what you'd like to carve. Occasionally I'll randomly carve into the carving block (like I did with this stamp), or draw a shape directly onto the carving block (like this one). Most of the time, though, it's best to draw your design onto a piece of paper, remembering that WHAT YOU DRAW WILL BE REVERSED ON THE STAMP. Important to remember if you're carving text!

Decide how you want to structure your stamp. It can be an outline or solid.

In this case, I'm making an outline stamp for someone, based on one of his illustrations. I took the image into Photoshop, resized and lightened it. Next, I used a soft pencil to go over all the places I want to print in the final stamp.

Now place the image down on the stamping rubber, and affix in place with a small piece of tape. Transfer the image to the rubber by shading over the back of the illustration.

Another technique, if you're using a photocopy, is to apply a small amount of acetone (nail polish remover) to the back of the paper. This does NOT work, however, with images printed by inkjet printers. (I learned that the hard/messy way!)

Note that some brands of rubber (not Speedball) have a printing and non-printing side, so be sure to use the correct side.

Remove the paper, and your image should be transferred! If the image isn't clear, try using a softer pencil.

At this point it's a good idea to roughly cut the stamp out of the rubber sheet so that you can rotate the rubber easily as you carve.

I like to start with the outlines of all sections. Run the carving tool away from you without pressing too hard or you'll end up gouging the rubber and taking out a chunk you don't want to. Remember that you can always take away more rubber later, so err on the side of taking less away.

When carving along curving lines it's best to keep the tool in one place and rotate the rubber.

If you're having trouble seeing where you have or haven't carved, try coating the whole piece of rubber with a thin layer of ink.

Once you've finished carving (remembering that the pieces you leave uncarved will appear in the final stamp), use your knife to cut away excess rubber around the edges.

Time for a test stamp. This will show you what pieces still need to be carved away, and any places where corrections should be made.

Make any corrections and...you're done! Don't worry if there are a few wonky bits, it adds to the charm of hand-carved stamps :-)

Here are some examples of stamps I've made in the past: