Yesterday my little kiddie mom art group started up the Wednesday art atelier again and I decided to show them how to do eraser stamps. I started carving these stamps over the summer and it's really addictive. I've done about twenty of them and Little S has done quite a few too. They're great fun for stamp addicts like me.
My inspiration for these and the atelier was the blog artist Geninne Z. I love her bird drawings and her collages are amazing. I also really love that she's so giving and shares so much of her talent. She's linked in my sidebar.
The supplies needed are easy-- a few dimestore quality rubber erasers, a small cutting tool (I use a cheapie exacto cutter from the diy store, small size, but it's a good idea to invest in a lino cutter which I really need to do soon here), and an ink pad or two, (preferably acid free like Colorbox but you can start off with anything really).
To start the kids drew an image on the eraser and we carved the images them for them. The kids really wanted to cut and stamp and have at it right away so they weren't that into the drawing part. I think it wasn't instant enough for their age level and we were having the atelier at a moms house where she has a veritable jungle gym in her backyard so that didn't help! The idea was to make the stamps then show them what they could do with them, like make cards or stamp your own wrapping paper. We never quite got that far though. Maybe in a second atelier we can do this.
I think the moms enjoyed the atelier the most and it was fun for me to share it with them. One mom was really talented and made these beautiful carvings right off the bat. But pssst I had a suspicion that she'd practiced first because I know she hates to get caught off guard. To be honest you probably won't like your first few stamps. It takes one or two tries to get the hang of it so don't get frustrated and start off with something easy.
It's fun to use them in collage and on cards. We make all of our own cards and wrapping paper so I get a lot of use out of mine. Make sure you wash them between color changes and after each use, otherwise they get messy. Mine got really messy with the kids yesterday because it was just too hard to ask them to rinse them each time, grrr.
3 comments:
Those are very cool and I think I will try a few. I have several stamps I have collected over the years, but like so many of my art things they are packed in the garage waiting for me to come whisk them away to creativity. And now I think I'll do just that.
I must remember this when the kids are out for a week in November and I need some projects - slightly less messy than the paper mache pigs we did in August and much mre practical.
Paper maché pigs! Cute.
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