Do-It-Yourself Eraser Stamp Inspiration
I don't call this a tutorial nor is it a revolutionary new idea but it is indeed meant as an inspiration to show that the lack of proper tools should never ever keep you from being craftsy. :)
I was determined to do some stamps while traveling but! like Precious the coffee seller says in Come Fly with Me series "We got cup, we got spoon, we got milk, we got sugar, we got water, we got fire, but we got no coffee, so we had to close early".
In my case: we got eraser, we got paper, we got scissors, we got ruler, we got ink pad - but we don't got a knife! I just did not find a paper knife from the village. Let alone speaking about a linocut knife:)
But we don't close early! No, we use whatever we got in the neighbourhood!
I decided to do a fly stamp and I worked the eraser with three tools:
- The corner of a small metallic ruler, which is actually excellent to draw the image on the surface. If you start lightly enough you can even alter and correct your lines. You can also use a bigger needle for that purpose. Of course you can draw the image first with a pencil but I was too impatient for that:) When you have your image as you like it, the trick is to go quite deep with your needle or ruler, which helps the next step.
- Scissors to carve off the excess rubber around the image - it turns out the eraser is soft enough to do it even with regular school scissors if you are ok with somewhat rough image. Couldn't be done with wine corks or a potato though:)
- Dividers, to punch some decorative holes and scratch some criss cross lines on the surface of the wings to make them a little bit lighter and more transparent. This also can be done with a needle or an awl. which would be even more comfortable to use:)
I just finished re-reading Gerald Durrell's Corfu Trilogy, which is an obvious inspiration for choosing an insect for my project, although the fly definitely is not a zooloogically accurate one:) I will probably take up a gecko, a rose-beetle and a crab next. Hopefully by that time I have acquired a small knife as well;)
