Stamp Carving - Jaine

I think when Vicki announced she'd managed to get lino cutting tools and Softcut stamp cutting material in to the shop, there was a general feeling of excitement all round, then Vicki sent me a sheet to play with and once I'd got it on my table it just sat there looking at me. Not from lack of inspiration, I knew what I wanted from it but from fear of cutting into it. I imagined cutting the perfect stamp then slicing into it and messing up the whole thing.

So there it sat until a coversation with Magda sparked me off to just give it a go. Was I happy I did! Once I'd made that first cut I was hooked.

I wanted to create a head for using in my journals. A big enough sized head and without hair so I can add any hair-do I like.

I turned to my magazine tracing method again and found the perfect head shot and traced it out onto the surface of the rubber.

Making that first cut following the lines with the smallest cutting tool was scarey but  taking it slowly I could control the cut very well.

Now at this point maybe I should have listened to Magda because once I'd inked it up to test it, it became obvious that what I actually wanted to create was an outline stamp. This is not easy and not really recommended for beginners.

It was too ambitious for my first stamp and I made a lot of mistakes along the way but I'll know better next time.

 I cut away with a larger cutting tool testing the stamp every so often to see how it was looking. Here you can see I still had to cut a little bit on the left side of the stamp and in fact in the end I decided it was the type of stamping block I was using that didn't really help.

You can see that on the left hand side I've cut away a large portion of the face, this is because, not having an outline on that side meant I could cut away more rubber to save me having to scoop it out.

So there she is all finished. She's not perfect but I guess practice makes perfect.  I also cut the word LIFE too and used a Finnabair doily stamp by Prima as hair.

Happy Easter weekend

Jaine
Now I'm totally hooked and can't wait to