Techniques

[Jan-Willem Doornenbal]

I really like stamps, have bought or been given some, but I'd like to cut then myself as well.
Eraser stamping looks a good chance to me, I'll try.
I also tried some thing with rubber, but in fact I do not know where to buy the good stuff (how thick should it be) and I wondered: should it be sticked on top of a wood block?
I did make some linoleum cuttings already and sticked them on top of woodblocks; this works well. But they're quite rough and work best with linoleum inks (which take a day to dry).
I think people who cut their own fonts or really small stamps must be specialists? or do you order them from a factory?
And anybody uses potato stamps or such like?

[Carla Cryptic]

Thanks for posting the photo Susanna - this is the stuff I was talking about in an earlier post. It's wonderful to carve and is thick enough to carve on both sides but it is fairly expensive and crumbly after a lot of use (meaning years, not just a lot of uses). I use it a lot for larger stamps. The smaller erasers, the Pelikans, are good, too.

Jan-Willem - there is a small amount of mastercarve in the pkg I sent you so you can feel the consistency. The erasers I found in the dollar store the other day seem to cut and print almost exactly like mastercarve! I am so happy about that because they are only 3 for $1.00 and they are large like the old Staedtler/Mars Grande.

[Jan-Willem Doornenbal]

With all the comments in this discussion and some erasers Carla send in mind, I visited a shop called Action, similar to the dollar/euro-stores. Next to toys, clothes, garden materials and shampoo they had writing materials and erasers.

The first and second (see photo's above) came together with a hole bunch in a package. The bigger ones are quite OK. The pencil-top erasers are too small: when you cut out a bit and push they break easily.

The two stamps above actually are two halves of a thick and large eraser. I consider this the best buy: a big and thick eraser (ca. 8*4*1 cm) for 26 €-cents (nowadays 35 -cents). Nice material, easily cuttable.

These erasers are toys in fact. They don't erase well and crumble to soon. But it's fun that they look like cookies and it's even more fun that they're called 'love erasers.' You can send them to your boy-/girlfriend when you want to quit the relation, I suppose.
Stamp examples in the group itself.

Btw I noticed in a child-stamp-set it's practice (possible/usual?) for children to to stamp with a cushion, but just by drawing with a felt-tip pen on the stamp and then stamp it. Very good solution for multicolour stamps.

[Carla Cryptic]

So cool that you've done so many and tried so many things already! I am the same way. I just can't stop till I've done a lot of different things.

The one that you cut in half looks a lot like the erasers I was mentioning in the last post I made. Maybe they are from the same manufacturer and they distribute to dollar stores and other cheap stores all around the world. Most of these erasers are made in China.

[Carla Cryptic]

This is a comparison of some of the larger rectangular erasers I've got. The one that simply says ERASER is the new one from the dollar store. The Staedtler Mars Grande erasers are old and new style - the older ones are smooth front and back and slightly larger while the new ones are smooth on one side (though covered with writing) and have a mold pattern on the other side which has to be sanded off before you can use that side. As you can see they are both slightly larger than the dollar store one BUT the Mars Grande is almost impossible to find now and, when I can find them, they are around $2.50 to $3.00 each whereas the others are 3 for a dollar. I posted a picture of the stamps I've carved this weekend from a couple of the dollar store erasers in the Rubber Stamps main thread as examples. They print REALLY well and carved well also. (As you can also see, the Mars Grande was only 95 cents some 15 or 20 years ago :)

BTW, the Snoopy and other erasers I got in other countries, primarily England and Sweden. The one on the far right is the largest but, although it was easy to cut, it has a rough grain I didn't like and it doesn't take ink well or print well. I was sad about that.

In front, there are some drafting erasers. The one that is a kind of double bonus is the white and blue one. The white part carves like butter and prints well for decades but the blue part is translucent and waxy, the perfect material with which to carve lettering and any other superfine lines. It will hold up for decades also.

Last, but not least, the Helix eraser (which is a knock off of Artgum erasers in size, color, and shape) is from the Dollar Store or some other cheap outlet store and is a great size. So thick, you can make several stamps from a single eraser or use the depth to help make better prints. Even though they are trying to be like Artgum, they are actually much better for carving and printing because they don't crumble and give off particles which can make you wheeze or sneeze. The only problem is, they aren't always available.

[Carla Cryptic]

Here's a link to some photos on my Facebook page which I posted for people there who wanted to know what eraser carving was. It includes a couple of pictures from above but also others (including tools) and more explanations. :)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=92184&id=683359082

[Jan-Willem Doornenbal]

Great to have a peek into all your supply drawers ;-)
I was satisfied with my lino cutting set, but I see there's so much more!
Some stuff has got strange names btw, like Dick's Soft Kut, but probably for you that just sounds OK.
I'll go and buy more erasers tomorrow (after my visit to the dentist)

[Jan-Willem Doornenbal]

I bought another 15 erasers last tuesday and made new eraser-stamps.
They go quite quick, because the rest of the family also likes the technique.
The children (6+4 y.o) just draw elves and sea-mermaids and I cut them. nice results.

[Jan-Willem Doornenbal]

I found Diana has a nice tutorial about carving, including transfering images (photocopy's transfer with acetone).

[Carla Cryptic]

Yes, that is a good one (didn't know if that was still available online). I haven't had much luck with acetone but maybe it's because I am so sensitive to the fumes. I either draw directly onto the carving material (in reverse - I'm used to it after all of these years!) or draw onto paper with a soft pencil and then burnish it onto the carving material. That works well also but there is an extra step if you're trying to transfer a photograph.

SoftKut is a funny name - most of them are at best silly and at worst unsettling! :) Good luck at the dentist. :)

[Jenn Grosso]

hi everyone! offering my two cents here. i use alot of pre made rubber stamps (mostly because i can find really neat and detailed rubber stamps easily online), but also love to carve my own. i use the larger sheets of rubber eraser material that i buy from my local art store. like the speedball texture but softer. I'll need to look up the brand name next time i go to the store cause it's not on the actual sheet of rubber eraser. i love the larger sheet format as i can cut the sheet down to different sizes for varying sizes of stamps. i also like to carve out textures and large size stamps to cover envelops. will post examples i have made soon... working on a larger stamp right now for tictac's bubbles art call...

[Carla Cryptic]

I'd love to know the sheet material you use - there are never enough options in this area as far as I'm concerned! :)

[Holly Johnson]

I have been a fan of having images made into photopolymer sheets by companies such as Jackson Products. You cram as many images on the sheet as possible then just carefully cut around them and use double back sticky foam to mount (on whatever you prefer, lids from jars work too...). You choose the size of the sheet according to how much you have to spend.
One of the reasons I like this is because I often see something, nature or people, that I want on a stamp so I always have my camera ready.