Friday, February 18, 2011

Hand Craved Stamps




I absolutely LOVE hand carved stamps. One of my customers sent me these pictures of some hand carved stamps made from wood that she found at a flea market in Pretoria. Thank you Dalene!
Aren't they beautiful?!
I believe that you cannot actually put a value on a stamp. Even though these particular ones are dirt cheap, I believe that they are invaluable because you can print the image thousands of times. Once you have made a stamp, you can use it again and again.
Wood blockas have been used for centuries around the world to print fabrics and the technique is still useful today. Although most fabrics are now printed with machines, block printing lends itself to manufacturing small runs of custom items.
Wood block stamps are widely used throughout India and Central Africa. I prefer to use lino or the more modern rubber mats because they are softer and easier to carve. The more pliable stamps also lend themselves to printing on more rigid surfaces. I use my lino stamps to print on fabric, paper, card, leather, pvc, wood and even candles.
The beauty of hand carved stamps is that you can make them whatever size you need. Many of the commercial stamps that you buy are very small. With lino you can make much larger stamps and you can shape them into convenient shapes for printing around the construction of garments.
All this talk about prints has inspired me to go and do some printing of my own....
Have a great day in full colour!
Kind regards
Melanie
0835689150



No comments:

Post a Comment