HOWTOCARVE
HOW TO CARVE ERASERS
INTO RUBBER STAMPS
Here's the BASIC how, what, where, when and why about
eraser carving by me, Rusty Clark. I started carving four years ago to
save some money and wound up carving and selling hundreds
of rubber stamp images. I've done enough of them to give
you an easy, efficient method to get started with.
Take a nice white plastic eraser (Staedtler Mars) or PZKut
material and transfer Xeroxed letters or images onto it. To
do this I roughly cut out the xeroxed letters (or image) I
want to use. I then scotch-tape it, face down, onto the
eraser, being careful not to tape over the image, (it won't
transfer if you cover it with tape). Then I take a piece of
cotton or a napkin, whatever, and saturate part of it with
nail polish remover (NPR) or acetone. Rub this wet thing onto the back
of the Xerox copy. Rub gently so that you don't shift the
copy but you do need to apply some pressure. Wet the copy
pretty good, too, to get the toner to transfer. (You can
often use the same Xerox image twice if you screw up the
first one when you start cutting). The other option, for
you artistically inclined folks, is to draw your image or
lettering on the eraser with a pencil. Remember the
lettering must be backwards on the eraser to print forward
on the paper. Then carve away everything that doesn't look
like an elephant.
The carved eraser doesn't ink as well with the toner glommed
on there, so now you can remove the gunk on the eraser with
NPR or acetone. Wow! Success. Just don't rub too hard, this is an eraser ...its mission in life is to disintegrate when rubbed!
I wanted to include this American flag to show you
a simple way to produce a two color design.
The field of stars is one block stamped in blue, and
the stripes are a separate eraser stamped in
red. The stars were made by pushing a paperclip wire
into the eraser to produce holes. High tech, huh?
I use an X-acto or Testors knife almost exclusively, though I do often
find a Speedball v-groover linoleum nib (a liner, really) handy for scooping out inside areas.
RULE #1: Always
try to angle your cuts AWAY from the design. If you undercut
the image it won't print properly and it just might break off
a critical component of the stamp. Straight down is okay but
angled away is stronger. These things will last 20 years,
according to Julie Hagan Bloch in NY, if you aren't terribly rough
on them. If your erasers have a logo
printed on the flat face (not embossing like the back of some
erasers) you can usually wipe that away with a napkin soaked
with acetone. Then you can see your transfer more easily. The best
piece of advice I can give you is: Garbage In - Garbage Out.
Find some clip art or images that are worth your time. (This
advice is coming from an entirely unskilled artist type. It's
clip art or no art for me.) Then be sure you can see clearly what's
what when it transfers. I've royally fouled up some things carving
away without really watching the details...especially around faces
and hands. RULE #2: Keep your blades sharp. RULE #3: I can't think of one
except for you to try a half dozen things before you decide one
way or the other about eraser carving.
It's very gratifying to be able to carve something and
then print it moments later (I am a devoted believer in
instant gratification.) Stamp, look it over, maybe carve a
little more away here and there, stamp it again, look again,
maybe a few more touch-ups and voila! Anne Rita Taylor in
Houston puts her carvings away for a week or two, then takes
them out and decides whether they need more work. Sometimes
distance helps, (Can you sing, So Far Away?) even if it's
just stamping the thing, then backing away or looking at it
in a mirror. The mirror trick is one I learned from my buddy M.B. Corbett in PA.
The stuff that I've carved is mostly out of Dover Clip Art books,
computer clip art, newspaper photos and ads. The image really needs to be
black & white for me to carve it. I really don't do much
shading (though it is possible to attain the effect through
crosshatching.)
If I find a particular
photo (like a publicity still, etc.) I take it in to a copy center
and fool around with the contrast (I read this in Eraser
Carvers Quarterly a couple years ago). I put the contrast all
the way down (LIGHTEN) so that grey drops out. Sometimes I do
this with the first copy then put the first copy (not original)
into the copier and go for lightest setting again. Once I've
dropped out all the lightly shaded areas and have an interesting B&W,
I usually then put the contrast to the darkest setting and make one
more copy to blacken the image that's left. This can result
in very dramatic, film noir-ish imagery. Mark-O-Rama of Winter
Park, FLA has mastered this genre.
Most of all - Forget those C's you got in art class and have FUN!
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