May Craft- Making a Stamp from Children’s Art

Making a Stamp from Children’s Art

Making a print from a child’s art is one way to reproduce the art and share the love. Rather than simply photocopying or scanning the artwork, creating a printing stamp from the art adds another layer of interpretation and human touch. There are many ways to make prints and this is only one of them. For novices, using a rubber printing block is easier than using linoleum.

What you need:

• a small piece of art from your child—ideally one that has strong lines, no or few grey tones, and a size smaller than the ink pad you will use
• ink pad—either a standard office stamp pad or one for art or scrapbook stamping (such as Color Box)
• rubber printing block (such as Speedball Speedy-Cut)
• linocutter handle and 2-3 blades of different sizes (such as the Speedball linocutter)
• pencil – HB or softer
• paper for tracing and for test prints
• fine paper or cards for finished prints—for example, cards and envelopes for a bunch of notecards (great gifts for grandparents and other relatives)
• rolling pin or brayer

What to do:

• 1. Choose and handle the artwork carefully. At first, you might want to choose simple images with very little detail.
  2. Trace: Hold the artwork to a well-lit window and place tracing paper over it to trace the artwork.
  3. Check your tracing against the original art to mark with pencil on the traced drawing what will be printed area versus unprinted area.
  4. Transfer: On the reverse side of the tracing paper, use the edge of the pencil to cover the art area with pencil lead.
  5. Place the tracing paper artwork side up on the printing block. With the pencil again, trace the lines of the drawing to transfer the image to the block.
  6. Check the image on the block to make sure that you know which areas should be printed (you could mark these with an X) and which should be unprinted. (Yes, this seems obvious, but it’s very easy to forget and do a reverse print by mistake.) If you want, simplify the image by thickening some areas or thinning some out.
  7. Using a blade screwed into handle, start cutting out from the block the areas you want unprinted. Start by outlining printing areas with the thinner blade and move on to big areas with the larger blade. (The following blog has a great demonstration. < http://blogdelanine.blogspot.ca/search/label/handcarvedstampstutorial>)
  8. Work slowly and brush away your cuttings regularly so you can see the image easily.
  9. Make a test print on some extra paper; gently and evening press your printing block onto the stamp pad and press the inked pad onto the paper. Roll the rolling pin or brayer over the back of the stamp to make sure the stamp fully prints onto the paper.
  10. Check the resulting test image to see if there are any edges to clean up with the blades. Make any refinements you want.
  11. Then get ready to print on your final paper or cards. First make sure that your printing surface is clean and that your hands are ink-free.
  12. Then print away!

{The original artwork here was a card Piers made for Speedy the Cat in grade 2.}