Stamp Materials

At Museware Pottery, we make our own stamps. The process we use to transfer images to our pottery is very similar to block printing. The big difference is that each stamp is painted & handled individually.

Our first attempts at stamp production involved sending our black and white images out to stamp making houses and having them made into stamps. Wicked expensive, done by mail and slooow. Then I found Speedball Speedy Cut carving rubber. We used it to create this logo for the Mount Washington Hotel.

Speedy Cut carves like butter (you can pick it off with your fingernail) creates a wonderful impression and cleans up well. It even holds up to soaking. Image transfer is easy. Place an image from an ink-jet (laser won't work) print side down on the rubber. Squirt the paper with nail polish remover. Rub with a spoon. A reverse of your image transfers perfectly. It is somewhat fragile and shows signs of wear with long term use. We've remade many of our earliest stamps but still have many well preserved older stamps. Our very oldest have dried and yellowed, but still work.

One day I placed an order with Speedball and mistakenly ordered pink Speedy Carve rubber. We heart this rubber. It has all of the characteristics of Speedy Cut, but is not as fragile - you cannot kill this stuff. 

In 2009, I found myself an agent and entered the world of licensing design. A major giftware & home goods manufacturer wanted to license some of my best selling designs. Naive to the process, I thought I had to physically make each design they'd requested. Since the design request included new work not present in the Museware Pottery line, I had to figure out how to get the more complex designs in my head onto pottery. I purchased wicked expensive polymer stamp making equipment. Like thousands of dollars expensive. After spending money I did not have on equipment I did not need, I found out that all they really needed were digital files.

I knew nothing about digital design & didn't even know what jpeg or dpi meant. Got a scanner, brought images of our hand carved designs (painted on tile) into Microsoft Publisher - the only design program I'd ever used.  It was like fricken magic! There was my hand painted work, in my computer! I still remember the day I created my first digital design featuring my own hand painted elements. I have made fire! I taught myself Photoshop and started sending manufacturers jpeg images at 300 dpi. The machine gathered dust. We learned to use it a year later. It's an integral part of our business now.

Long story short, when I saw this Galbraith & Paul image, I knew exactly what I was looking at. I just have to figure out what material they're carving/cutting. I doubt it's rubber - that would be too heavy for blocks this scale. This much 1/4" rubber would weigh ton, making it hard to place with precision. Time to research.

Jenny Nelson of HomeSweet uses adhesive backed craft foam sheets to create her bold and graphic block print designs. One of her printing blocks contains hundreds of tiny tear shaped elements. Each was hand cut out of what looks like two sheets of craft foam. Cool. We know craft foam.

To get the feel for this material, I drew a simple design on the paper back of a single layer of black foam. I tried the lower left cuts using my smallest, sharpest scissors. I ended up with ragged edges and chopped curves. So I ditched the scissors and picked up an Exacto with a shiny new blade. The cuts were easy and resulted in clean lines.

Cutting a double thickness of blue foam with the Exacto was more than twice as hard, but could be mastered with practice. My first cuts were slightly beveled. A straight edged stamp gives a better impression and lasts longer. Some rough edges needed clean up.

I'm not convinced craft foam will yield the thin branches and delicate leaves of the Galbraith & Paul block, but think it could be perfect for larger, simpler elements.

Because block creation is so labor intensive, I have to wonder if G&P might be using a more "permanent" stamp material like unmounted lino block. I found this Golden-Cut Linoleum at Dick Blick. According to reviews, it cuts easier than the grey unmounted linoleum and holds up well after repeated use. It does curl when wet, but not when attached to Plexi. I'll look for something local, now that I know such a thing exists. Something tells me it's going to be a while before I produce any fabric.