Lesson Info
3. Carving Negative Space Into a Stamp Design
Lessons
Lesson Info
Carving Negative Space Into a Stamp Design
The reason that I like to show people this is um not only does it look kind of cool I kind of like the way that it's you know, it's kind of it's foot plopped it's you know I can print this with any color I could use multiple colors you know, it's kind of almost showcasing the color and more than the design when you have so much space. Um the other cool thing about negative stamps is, um it goes a heck of a lot quicker because you are not carving everything around the design you just carving the letter so it's kind of a little bit of a cheat if you want tio make a stamp really, really quickly um and you have like a letter or simple design or something just put it on a background and I'm just going teo I love this table but there's like a little bit of a texture to it so for this should I can you see that ok it's kind of a light way what you can do you can trace the letter itself. What I like to do though is I like to trace around the letter and then just so that I kind of khun really kn...
ow once I transfer it where what needs to stay and what needs to go I'm shading it a little bit around if you mess up, you can erase before your template before you transfer it yeah, so you always cut out anything that is white basically basic consistently whether it's a positive or negative that way you don't get confused, ok? Basically that's kind of your personal preference if it makes more sense to you to draw the m and carve the em away are the a excuse me that's fine. I've just kind of gotten used to always carving the pink away and leaving the graphite because to me the graphite is what I want to print a graphite represents the ink basically he's getting a little bit more advanced. Megan, how would you translate an image with a lot of shadow and half tones into high contrast ray and what? You can definitely use graphic computer programs like photo shop I think there's a filter on there I believe it's called threshold er there might be other filters on there too like posterized where you can make the computer translate what would be black and what would be white for you can kind of just wing it and print out the photograph and you know the way that I like to think of it is say I'm doing a portrait um I like to think of anything that's fifty percent gray toe white would get carved away and if anything that's fifty percent great toe black would stay um and you can also get kind of I guess stylistic with um how you translate you know I don't know look up look up pop art you know, look up different like graffiti artists look up different ways that people have you know in the past translated photographic images into high contrast like andy warhol you know used like the campbell soup and translated that into different colors that printed and you print them multiple times so um and it's still kind of retained that photographic sense but in a way you know the way that he drew his lines and it would be you know, do swirls and things like that to create patterns really turned it from just a photograph of an object into something that was artistic so you know you're the you're the person that can do that best you know um let's see here so I'm going to go ahead and start making my negative stamp card that circle and if you know carving up a smooth circle is kind of intimidating you or you don't even really like the look of it you want it to be a little bit more raw go ahead and you know carve it, carve it with a ragged edge or make it look like it was an ink splotch or something um do whatever you know works for you if you wanted to be a square you can hold up put your ruler on your rubber and carve along the rulers edge if you want, um that could be an aesthetic thing for you some people would never dream of that really I don't want I want my stamped looked like that I don't want a perfect edge once I went in there with that five, I knew I would have enough space to trim off the rest so again, I am using this pink rubber, but if you have the white rubber at home or I've seen blue, if you have another material use that, you know, this isn't the only material that you have to use for this project is just one that I happen to, like it's easy to carve and you know, I like I said, I buy it in those sheets so I could just keep making stance politely different technique of ferguson's you're using wood or maybe line or acrylics it's not really different technique? No, not not really on the new rules to translator to translate these tools translate toe lina, you couldn't use these tools for wood. There are better wood and grieving and carving tools out there for specifically for would um but no, I mean the technique is pretty much the same, just a heck of a lot easier with the rubber, okay, I'm gonna go ahead and carve that a and then our stamp is goat good to print so now I don't know if you can get a good shot of that I'm just going in where the white is and I can basically I'm going on them opposite side of the line now are the inside of the line and I'm still just doing this with the number one you always want to start with the number one outline even though I know that that's pretty sick a pretty thick line and I could probably just attack it with the number two I don't want to do that it's not gonna look it's not going to retain the design as well as if I would to start with one okay and then I'll just go in with the two now that have got that outline I can pretty much be done with after the two because I don't think I have a space big enough to inside the letter to use my number five tool blade and I just clean it up a little bit with the number one see how easy that wass I'm like pretty much done here the super quick for a beginner do you think it's better to start maybe doing the negative whereas it's less cutting or do you think it really doesn't matter which way you approach it? I don't think it really matters um I would say do what you want you know what you like um but I don't know maybe start with the positive you know just because that's you want to kind of get it in your head. You know the concept of what prince that one. What doesn't before you start switching things up and, you know, um, yeah, whatever works for you.
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Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
Meagan gives you some basics on how to make a negative and a positive stamp. She makes it look so easy. I can't wait to try it. I watched the free version. Thanks. I didn't hear or see what to use to connect the stamp to the wood. Did anyone hear this?