Transcripts
1. Masterclass - Intro to Making Custom Stamps: In this class, I want to
take you directly into my creative process
as I troubleshoot creatively to work
smarter and not harder. So this piece behind me started as a collage with some old maps, then I painted and collaged some circles and some
geometric shapes on it. I love the structure, but I still felt like
something was missing. I kept imagining a bird motif of migration and birds
flying across the canvas. But yet, I didn't want to
hand paint every single one and worry about placement,
structure, sizing. So instead of forcing it, thought and asked
myself how I could make this process more
efficient and still fun. That's when I
realized I could make my own block stamps for this motif going
across the canvas. Throughout this class, I'm
going to take you through my method for transferring
images, carving, and making quick
custom block stamps and using them to add rhythm, movement, and pattern to
your paintings and collages. Hi, I'm Jules. I'm an
artist and art educator. Let's get inside the class and start making our
own custom stamps.
2. Materials: M. Okay, let's go over the materials we're going to use
for this class. The first thing we need
is something to carve into our motif we're
going to create. So you can either use these
erasers or speedball makes this linoleum carving
block as their version of a easily carvable block to use. And to carve, I use
this tool right here, a little carving tool, and in it comes with
five different heads that are easily attached. You just loosen up the top
and drop the carving portion, tighten it up, and then you are good to go
to start carving. I also have these wood carvers. I find that they remove
large areas of block away that is super
fast and easy to do. So I've got a set of those. To transfer our images, we're going to need a pencil, and I'm going to show you
several different techniques to transfer our image
onto the blocks. But one of them is a pencil. One of them is some
graphite paper. I use graphite paper,
not carbon paper. I also have a bone folder. And then this blender
marker made by chart pack. So blender marker
made by chart pack. It is flammable and stinky. So make sure you use it in
a well ventilated area. I also make sure that when
I use it after I'm done, I put the cat back
on immediately so it doesn't stink the room up. I also have some scissors, some markers, both alcohol
and watercolor markers. I have some ink pads, and then I have my images, and I have images that I've printed out
on a laser copier, because if I have laser images, that means I'll be able
to use my blender marker. It doesn't work with an
ink jet, unfortunately. But if you have an inkjet, you still can use
the methods with the pencil or the
graphite paper. Last thing we're
going to need is some pre designed backgrounds. So I just sort of went
through things that I have monoprinted on my jelly plate that I've
sort of put to the side that maybe like this one I don't care for very much,
but I've held onto it. I've got some cyanotype and some watercolor
stencil backgrounds that I can easily put
my stamped motifs, and maybe it will lead to
something more creative and better than I had
hoped or imagined. So I hope to unleash our
creativity today and use some practical applications of our stamp and block making. Alright, I'll see you in
the first lesson where we will choose our
motifs for carving.
3. Choose an image: Okay. Let's talk
about the images that we're going
to transfer onto our linoleum box to begin carving a personalized
stamp for ourselves. I have printed out on my laser copier several different
bird silhouettes that I've gotten from some
royalty free websites that I have copied
the reverse of it. I have flipped the image
and I have printed out both images for each one. This will give me some
options when I go to carve my stamp as far as which direction I want
the birds to face, depending on which transfer
technique I choose, that will determine which
direction the stamp is facing. You'll see that in the next
lesson when we go to transfer our designs and how we
decide which method to use. I've also printed out
a few different sizes of the same birds. I've also got a few
other bird motifs that I've printed
in a mirror image. Then I wanted to
show you some of the stamps that
I've already got. This is a carrying
case I have that actually was for
storing hot wheels, but I find that it fits a lot of these small
stamps really well. I've done some botanical
motifs of eucalyptus, I've got different
heart designs. I was making lots of
heart Valentine cards. Here are some birds
that I've used on the Canvas that I've
shown you with the maps. I just feel like you can
do whatever you want. Here's some squiggly lines
just to build interest. Use your imagination. Think about things
that you want to see repeated in your art
pieces and print some out, decide what size,
and meet me back here and we'll start
transferring our images.
4. Transfer the image: Okay, now we're going to go over four easy transfer methods. The first one, we're just
going to draw what we see. I just want to stress that each one of these techniques is going to yield a different outcome
for different reasons. This first one,
I'm just going to look at the image I want to do and I'm just going to
draw it onto the block. Very simple. Then I'll just use my
carver to make the image. Now, that is the
image that I saw. I just drew what I saw on top and now I'm going to
see what it prints. I made an arrow going
back to the left. Now, this next method, we're just going to
scribble on the back of the image to get some
graphite onto the paper. And then I'm going
to place my image on top of where I want it, and then I'm going to
draw and press to try to transfer the graphite that we've left on the back of
this piece of paper. There it is. I've used my pencil scribble. Now I've got the image on there. Let me carve it real
quick and we'll give it a stamp to see
what it looks like. I've got an arrow going
back into the left. Let me do this again. This
one's going to work better. Here we go. Let's
do this one too. This next one, we're going
to use the graphite paper, which is a little
easier than the pencil scribble because all I'm going to do is there's two
sides to the graphite paper, this side has got the graphite. I'm going to place that down. Place this here. Make sure my image is on top of it, centered
where I want, and then I just press and
draw, there's my arrow. Graphite paper. Oh, you can see where the
graphite came off onto here. So that's cool. I like that. So let me carve this
real quick. Okay. I'm sure you're saying yourself, Jill these are all
about the same. They've all got
the same outcome. Well, yes, that's true. However, the next one is really going you're really going
to like the next one. Okay, here we go. So so far, what we've done
is we've created an image, but the problem is it gives us the mirror image of what
we originally started with. Now, let's use
this transfer pen. This is where
things get special. I've got the image that
I want right here. I'm going to flip
this over and put it down onto my stamp
where I want to carve. Now, because it's a laser copy, the toner is floating on
top of the paper as opposed to an ink jet copy where the
ink soaks into the paper. Now I'm going to take
my bone folder and I'm going to be careful not
to move this image, and I'm just going to
press where the toner is. Apply even pressure. And you saw I capped that
right away after I was done saturating the paper and now I lift this off
and there is my image. Now, I have a mirror
image on my stamp, which is exactly what
I want if I want this arrow pointing to the
right and not the left. Let me carve this real quick. Wow, what a clear crisp
image it created. I love that. I can easily
see what I'm doing. Then let's apply
some ink and I'm pressing and I actually have the image that
I originally wanted. This is the only method that you do not have
to flip your image. If you use one of
the first three, you need to do a mirror flip of your image
to get it onto your stamp. Otherwise, you're
going to create a design that is the opposite
of your original one. But using the transfer pen, you see you get the original
design that you transferred. I hope that helps you decide
which method you want to go with if you need to adjust
some of your images. This is why I said
print mirror images because that way
you'll have options of which way you want
your design to face depending on which one of
these methods you chose. Okay, so I've got my
speedy carve open, and I'm going to choose
a bird to transfer. I think I really like this guy, so I think I will transfer him. All right, so let
me cut him out. Okay. Okay, so I'm going to choose to use my transfer pen so I don't
have to reverse the image that I ultimately want
because I do want this bird that is going
to be looking down. I think I'm going
to put him down in the corner over here. Yeah. I just flip the paper up,
I'm looking through it, make sure I've got a
little bit of room on each side. I think
that looks good. I'm going to take
my pen, uncap it, and I'm going to
start saturating the paper where the images. Remember this is a
laser copy with toner. Okay. Put the cap back on, get my bone folder out, don't move the paper,
and I'm just going to press everywhere
I see the toner. Okay, that should be good. Lift it up and look
how crisp that is. Wow, there's my image. Here's the reverse of it, but we all know that once I
carve this and we flip it, it will be this image again. All right, however
you want to transfer your designs onto your piece
of linoleum or eraser, do that and meet me
back in the next lesson and we will begin
carving our motifs.
5. Carve the image: Okay, so we have our image transferred onto
our linoleum block, and I'm going to pick out
my smallest attachment to begin carving. So that's the first
thing we're going to do is when we start
carving our block, we're going to start small
and just outline the shape. I'm also going to Make
cuts from the inside out. What I mean by that is
I'm not going to start at the tail and come into the body because
of this turn here. I might start at one of these deep points or here
next to the body and go out. So like right here, I want to. And I'm looking inside my blade, where it's going to come
down and pierce the linolum. So I want to come in at like
a 45 degree angle and begin. Now, I'm going to turn
the block as I'm turning my wrist so I've come from
the inside of the wing, and I'm going out to the
tip and lifting away. So I'm going to do that again
starting at this point. So I'm looking at the angle that my blade is going
to come down into the linolum and I start
pushing and come up and away. Sometimes that doesn't come out, so kind of go back and get it. So I'll do it again.
So I'm going to come back to this middle point. And out. All right. So this one. So this is like one big swoop
at the bottom of the body. So I might start
way out here and then come in and start turning, watching that edge where it's cutting and I'm in
charge of the speed. I'm in charge of how deep
it's going and then out. All right. So, right here, I've got these two little tails. I'm going to start out here
and press and go. All right. Let's see. So I can
continue my cut from here. And out. Okay, so I have the
entire thing outlined. So now I can go back
with a larger So, yeah, I'm going to do this wide, U shaped, kind of shovey shape. Kind of shovey shape. Okay. So what I'm going
to do is I'm going to try to bevel out the
outside of this bird. So I want my stamp I don't want to undercut
what I've already done. Undercut. What do
I mean by that? It means I don't
want to carve out underneath the linoleum that I want to keep. I want it to be. So, like, if we're
looking at the side of our linoleum, here. This is how it is right now. So if what I've got
carved out is a circle, and I'm looking at the
side of my linoleum. I want it to come out like this. So I want this to be like a 45 degree angle coming off
of the stamping surface. So right now it's
at right angles. Now I want it to be 45 from the stamping surface to
the bottom of stamp. That's the bottom. All right. So to
accomplish that, I'm going to cut
way on the outside, and I'm watching
this inside angle so that my inside angle actually meets that first
thin cut that I did. So I'm making this deep trough on the outside of my stamp. So anytime I start, I always make sure I want to put my shovel down in the trough. Then I can go because
I don't want to damage the silhouette
that I've already made. Okay. Let's see.
Let's look at this. I'm building that angle
that we just talked about. Let's see. D one more
pass right here. So as you see, I kind of
do concentric circles to get to where I want to go. And then once I've got
enough of this carved out, I'm going to do a test
so that I can then see where else I need to carve. Alright, I'm going
to grab one of these other tools to just
cut a big piece with. Okay. I'm just
gonna come in here. Alright. See how easily that just took that
whole thing off, and then I can even come in and get rid of some of these
edges that are poking up. So this is part of that
bevel I was talking about. See that stair step
down on each side. Okay, I am concerned about what this looks like
around the beak. However, I'm just going
to let it roll right now. Let's ink it up and see what it looks like. All right. I can already tell I need to take care of some
of this down here. Okay. Oh, the beak
is a little long. Okay. Let's see. Alright, so I can see the line way out here,
which is this line. So that's easily remedied there. Let me just get rid
of that real quick. Okay, the beak has to be brought down
some, so let's do that. And that. Okay, I'm gonna stamp it again. Color it a little bit. I'm just looking at the head. I'm
not doing the whole thing. Okay, that's a little better. It probably could be shaved
down a little bit more. Alright. Let's see. Okay, I'm kind of liking that I can already
tell right there, so let's stamp it
and see what we got. Yeah, much more reasonable. Alright. Let's do it again. Now I'm looking at
the tail portion. Okay. Not bad. Okay. It could be carved out just
a little bit more. Alright. So now I'm taking
down the sides right in there. Just because as I'm stamping, it's a little wobbly. I want to help the stability
of it a little bit. Alright, I'm gonna test
it out one more time. Okay. Okay, there's my swallow. Okay. This little
bit right there. I'm gonna take that down. Alright, let's see
what we got again. So this is just a process
of back and forth, back and forth,
giving it a test. Alright, there he is. Perfect. Love it. Alright, so I might make a few
more of these guys. Okay, so carve the rest of your stamps and meet me back here with some
of your backgrounds, and we'll move on to the final
project of putting some of your images from your
block stamp designs.
6. Final project: Okay, so this is the fun part. So let's get going with
our final project. I'm gonna open up my folder with some pre printed
backgrounds that I've made. I've got a few that, honestly, I really don't care for, so I'm going to start on those. These are the busiest ones, and they're kind of jumbled, but I figured they'd
be good practice ones, and then we can move
on to some backgrounds that I actually do like. Okay, so this one, I mean, wow, these are so busy. Okay, so this one, I was
thinking about putting some dark colored birds, but birds that will pick
up some of the reds and browns and blue turquoise
that we already have on here. So I'm just gonna
I mean, honestly, I'm just gonna go for it, and I'm gonna choose this
blue turquoise color. And here's stamps
that I've made. So these are ones that I've
made in the class today. These are three of the same bird different
sizes that I made previously that I used
on the painting that I've shown you many times that I've done that
inspired this class. But I think I'll
start with maybe some of these medium sized birds, and then I can add some of the larger ones and
smaller ones around it. So to me, these are
the three medium, one, two, three, I'm just
going to choose this one. So I've got acrylic ink
on this paper right now. This is a watercolor marker. So the pigments are going to behave a little
strangely, I'm sure. This ink is going to float
on top of the acrylic. It might not be the most
solid print, and that's okay. So I'm gonna have this bird kind of flying down at an angle, and I'm gonna put him
a little off center and stamp him right there. So I love this project and this exercise because it
just breeds spontaneity, and I will be placing these little bird motifs
probably in places that I normally wouldn't have
if I was just sitting here drawing them out and
overthinking it. So I'm going to choose
the small one next. We keep going for
the same color, and then I can vary colors
or vary colors around it. So these smaller ones are going to look like
they're more in the background behind
these medium sized ones. The bigger ones are going to
be more in the foreground. So I could really
pop this larger one. Here's small medium,
and I can put a larger one right here. So I
think I might do that. And I chose the
watercolor marker because it's not gonna be as
bold or bright as, say, ink or acrylic paint. I still want to have options
when I go to do more. So because this is yeah, nice. So because this is
watercolor ink, I can take some water and a paint brush and move some
of this pigment around if I don't like the pattern
that it was stamped in this breeds for even more
creativity and spontaneity. I could then grab my watercolor
paints and paint on this. I could use squash. I could grab the acrylic paints. I could grab paint pens. But now I've got these
little templates for birds that I can make
into other things. And already, this is a more
interesting piece of art. Okay, so let's do
this background. This is on watercolor paper. I use some leaves and just some watercolors and let the leaves sit on the paper, and it kind of grabbed
on to the leaf textures. Now, this might be
something I might cut up into smaller pieces of art. So I'm going to think about
this a little differently to use these backgrounds
in an interesting way. Now, I could come here
and just paint a bird, but I've got these lovely
templates and outlines that I can turn into something turn into something
more interesting. So what if I used
a lighter color? Say, I used this light
green but I also used some of this turquoise and
kind of did ombre situation. Alright, let's see
how that looks. And I'm gonna come here and
I'm gonna put it right. Right. Very nice. And I can see that being
a small little painting, especially if I did
something else to it. Let's do another one. And I wonder if this ink
is gonna pick up. This is a lighter
distressed oxide ink. And I'm just gonna put him
right down in the middle. Beautiful. Oh, I love
that. Let's do it again. Okay, we'll do a different one. Maybe with Let's do this ink. This is like a baby blue color. Look at that. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Let's do another
one. Wanna do a dark green. It's gonna be fairly
bright and bold. And we'll put them right here. Boom. Lovely. Okay, so that was a
great application. What else can we do? Let me Oh, so this one's fairly busy. But I still think it would
be cool to have some birds coming across or coming up
out of this and flying out. So let's do that. Again, I think my choice is
gonna have to be fairly dark. I'll just get out this
distressed black again. Okay, again, this is
on acrylic paint, so it might behave
a little strangely. As far as coverage
when I go to stamp it. Boom, there it is. But there is my outline. I love it. I love it. I love it. The ink, I can move around again because it is not dry yet, so it's not taking
any water to do this 'cause this is ink. But I'm just kind
of scratching it down into the paint
that's already there. Awesome. Awesome, awesome sauce. Okay. Let's do another one. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Like it. Let's do this one. Mmm. Alright, so there's another one birds flying across. So beautiful, so dynamic. Let's try one more. Let's see which
one I want to do. Let's get something light.
7. Conclusion: Pieces of art with you just now, from backgrounds that
I've already made, there's one on a
cyanotype background. This is on a
monoprint background. This is a watercolor background with the bird silhouettes. I think this exercise would
be really good on some cards. There's another one just sort of experimenting with color. And translucency. But
I really like that. And then here's the last one
with little darker birds. And again, I can go
back and embellish. I can go back and collage. I can go back and
do lots of things, make cards out of them. But I hope this has
helped you bend your brain a little bit on
how to use your stamps, how to make custom
stamps for yourself. This is so much fun
and so satisfying. I can't wait to see
your final projects and how you've
created some stamps and use them on some existing backgrounds that
you already have created. Hope you've enjoyed this class. If you have, please follow
me here on Skillshare. I will see y'all
very soon. Cheers.
Jules Art Bender, Artist and Art Educator
