Wednesday, 11 August 2010

Carving lino and rubber stamps




So I love to carve lino (and shoddy eye sight as a consequential price to pay for spending hours squinting over a lino sheet meticulously carving fine detail whilst muttering about the pains of being an artist..) Hence my burning need to create finer detail and more elaborate ornate pattern on it - so Ive started to carve my paisley, which looking at the scale of detail will take a good couple of weeks to finish - Im such an impatient Ive even started carving the tail detail before Ive finished drawing the head - but I often work like this - the buring need to carve often outstrips the patient requirement of finalising the drawing.

Then I realised I could also carve rubber stamps - Ive seen such pretty ones on etsy Im dying to try it - I bought a piece of rubber from a etsy seller in singapore and was in raptures as I opened the package..she had wrapped it exquisitely ( a simple blank rubber stamp purchase) and enclosed a beautiful little hand written note on the most adorable kawaii memo pad sheet featuring the gorgeous San-X Boots Kutusita Nyanko and included a couple of pattern sheets etc to start me off. I was smitten, in love... I promptly bought a similar San-X boots memo pad to scribble on that evening.
The rubber sheet proved to be a soft version of lino - Im hooked! I started off by trying a basic little totoro pattern I already created for use on printing my tea towels alongside some of my other kawaii characters. Its turned out fine. Im going to mould a polymer clay handle for it so I can grip it easily whilst stamping or printing with it...Im a hand printer so I know all the little things you need for ease of use in a tool.
Then I really got inspired.. I had bought this rubber sheet to create some of my own rubber stamps of kawaii creatures.
 Im going to create a range of larger sized kawaii stamps ranging from the simple shape like my tester totoro to far more detailed pieces like my maneki neko delivery kitty... I LOVE this (my creativity has bubbled all of a sudden and my mind is racing as to the potential patterns I can create). Though goodness knows how Im going to fit this into my already packed shedule, I have tons of fabric to print, custom orders to get out and some orders for my textured plaster panel work...all done whilst the baby and 6 year old sleep at night ( or not as it turns out...who has the formula for children to sleep through the night without getting up at least 4 times...6 years on and I havent seen an unbroken nights sleep..ho hum)


2 comments:

  1. very cute carving....i love kawaii stuff too...embarrassing as it is....i love anime as well....your paisley is gorgeous....seeing your work has made me definitely want to push myself harder when it comes to carving the lino....oh but as i am sure you know time children the garden my husbands etsy shop the house it all seems to stand in my way....i guess its time to stop making excuses....

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  2. That paisley is gorgeous! I can't wait to see the print!! So intricate. I can't imagine how your fingers do all that work!

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