My latest venture is carving rubber stamps to use with textile dyes or ink pads for paper. The possibilities are endless so for my first effort I have focused on traditional Indian shapes for inspiration.
I used a block of Ezy carve rubber, Speedball lino cut tool, an Exacto knife, Archival ink pad, some old corks, uhu glue and the usual 2B pencil, paper and ruler.
I drew my design on a 2.5 cm cross grid for the small stamp and a 5cm grid for the lare stamp. Then placed the rubber block over my design and pressed it firmly so the design would transfer to the block. Then I cut around the shape with the exacto knife and carved out the background with the lino carver.
I found some old corks in the kitchen cupboard ( who me?? a hoarder??) and stuck my stamp to the cork so that it is easier to handle.
I'm playing around with ideas for my signature- to put on my screen prints and hand stamped gift cards and papers.
This is my test paper and even though it looks a bit rough I quite like the imperfect effect. I am going to try using my screen printing ink to do a run of stamping on fabric - fun, fun, fun.