Motif Design and Stamp Printing

Lessons

Senior 1 · Fine Arts

Motif Design and Stamp Printing

5 lessons

Lesson 3 of 5

Carving a stamp: tools, materials, safety and steps

25 min

The oldest way to print

Long before printing machines, people printed by carving a design into a block, inking its surface and pressing it onto cloth or paper. Carved wooden blocks have printed cloth in India for many centuries, Asante printers stamp adinkra cloth with carved calabash, and every school office still uses a rubber stamp. This kind of printing is called relief printing: the parts left standing up (in relief) take the ink and print; the parts cut away stay the colour of the paper. In this lesson you will turn your motif into a stamp.

Materials for the block

Material	Good for	Notes
Potato or sweet potato	a first, quick stamp	soft and easy to cut; lasts one lesson; blot the cut face dry
Rubber eraser	small, detailed stamps	cheap, carves smoothly with a craft knife, lasts for years
Polystyrene food tray	line designs	no cutting: press lines in with a blunt pencil; the pressed lines print white
Thick card or old rubber shapes	bold shapes	cut shapes from card, or from an old flip-flop sole, and glue them onto a card or wood base (a built-up stamp)
Soft wood or lino	long-lasting stamps	harder to cut; needs proper gouges and a bench hook

Tools

Craft knife: for cutting the outline of each shape.
Gouges (lino cutters): a V-gouge cuts fine lines; a U-gouge scoops out wider areas. If you have none, a craft knife and small cuts work for erasers and potatoes.
Bench hook: a board with one strip underneath that hooks over the table edge and one strip on top that holds the block still.
A pencil, tracing paper (or thin exercise-book paper), a ruler, fine sandpaper and a cutting board.
For inking: a small roller, a brush, or a home-made stamp pad: a folded cloth in a tin lid, soaked with paint.

Carving steps

Prepare the block. Cut it to size with straight sides and sand the printing face smooth and flat. A 4 cm to 6 cm square is a good size for a first stamp.
Draw the design at full size on thin paper, in solid black.
Reverse it. Turn the paper over so the drawing faces the block, and rub the back firmly with a pencil or a spoon to transfer the lines. The design on the block is now a mirror image, so it will print the right way round.
Mark the waste. Hatch every area that will be cut away. Remember: what you cut away stays white.
Cut the outlines. With a craft knife, cut round each shape about 2 to 3 mm deep, with the blade angled away from the shape, so the raised part stands on a wide, sloping base.
Clear the background. Remove the waste with a U-gouge or small knife cuts, always cutting away from the edges of the design and away from your holding hand.
Proof it. Ink the stamp and make a test print on scrap paper. Look for unwanted marks from high background areas, and cut them lower.
Add a handle by gluing a bottle cap or a small block of wood to the back, and draw an arrow on it to show which way is up.

Worked example: a stamp with an initial

Gatete carves a 5 cm × 4 cm eraser stamp with a star and his initial, G.

He draws the design in black on thin paper: a five-pointed star 2.5 cm across and a G beside it, each stroke 4 mm wide.
He turns the paper over and transfers it, so the G appears backwards on the eraser.
He hatches the background and the hole inside the G: those parts will be cut away and will print white.
He cuts the outlines 2 mm deep with the blade sloping away from the star and the letter, then clears the background.
His first proof shows a faint smudge in one corner: a patch of background was not cut low enough. He removes it, and the second proof is clean, with the G the right way round.

Make it

Make a quick potato stamp of a simple shape to practise cutting and printing.
Then carve your final motif from the last lesson into an eraser, a rubber sheet or a built-up card block, following the eight steps.
Print five proofs and choose the best. Write one sentence about what you corrected between the first and the last proof.

Look closely

This wooden printing block was carved in India in the 15th or 16th century and is 18 cm tall. It was made to print cloth.

The raised lines of stems, leaves and flowers are the parts that took the dye and printed. Everything between them has been carved away deeply, so it would not touch the cloth.
The flowers are stylised: the petals are regular and evenly spaced, not copied exactly from a real plant.
Near the bottom is a small panel of writing. On any block, writing has to be carved as a mirror image so that it prints the right way round.
The raised parts have wide bases, just like the good cut in the diagram. That is why the block has survived for hundreds of years.

Printing block, India, 15th–16th century, carved wood. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Public domain (CC0), via Wikimedia Commons.

Warning

Safety with cutting tools

Always cut on a board or a bench hook, never on your lap or holding the block in the air.
Keep your holding hand behind the blade and cut away from it and from your body. Turn the block, not your hand, to change direction.
Sharp tools are safer than blunt ones, because they do not need force. Never push hard.
Close or cover blades when you put them down, pass tools handle first, and carry them pointing down.
Throw potato stamps away after the lesson; never eat food used for printing.
If you cut yourself, press a clean cloth on the cut and tell your teacher at once.

Tip

"Cut away what stays white; carve it backwards so it prints forwards." In the exam, show your reversed tracing and at least one proof alongside the final print.

✦

Practice

In relief printing, which parts of the block print?

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Solution: the raised parts left standing; the parts cut away do not touch the paper and stay the paper's colour.

Why should the blade be angled away from the shape when you cut its outline?

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Solution: it leaves the raised shape standing on a wide, sloping base, which is strong. A cut angled inwards (an undercut) leaves a thin base that crumbles.

What is a bench hook, and why is it used?

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Solution: a board with one strip underneath that hooks over the table edge and one strip on top that stops the block. It holds the block still so your hands can stay safely behind the blade.

A student carves the word AMANI on a stamp exactly as it is written, without reversing it. What will the print show?

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Solution: the word will print as a mirror image, reading backwards. (The letters A, M and I look the same reversed, but N does not, and the word runs from right to left.)

Your first proof has unwanted grey marks in the background. What is the cause and the fix?

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Solution: parts of the background are not cut low enough and are touching the ink. Cut those areas deeper, then proof again.

Remember

Relief printing: raised parts print, cut-away parts stay white, and the print is a mirror image.
Materials range from potato and eraser to foam, built-up card, wood and lino.
Steps: prepare, draw, reverse, mark the waste, cut outlines at a slope, clear, proof, add a handle.
Use a board or bench hook; keep your hand behind the blade and cut away from it.

Sources and credits

Lesson text, making steps, diagram and practice: written by Ganzaa.
Printing Block, India, 15th–16th century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Open Access), via Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication). Reproduced without changes.

1The oldest way to print

2Materials for the block

3Tools

4Carving steps

Worked example: a stamp with an initial

5Make it

6Look closely

Practice

The oldest way to print

Materials for the block

Tools

Carving steps

Make it

Look closely