Making more marks

The "tree erasers" from the mark-making course are taking on a life of their own. I was so pleased to see how well they worked in repetition -

But what do people say when they see something like that? Often the comment is "Oh you should make some greetings cards - they'd sell!" Frankly, the time spent doing the stamping is going to make those cards expensive, if you carefully work out the sale price. Not to mention the "creativity cost" of coming up with the idea, and rather more minimally, the cost of card, envelope, and cello bag, which can be as low as 50 for £5.

But the idea was planted in my mind so I'll be making some for the MSF benefit sale....

First task, cut the other eraser that I'd drawn out in the class. I did some rubbings to check how it was turning out, and also how the two stamps might be combined. Of course "let's make some more!" came to mind but in the first instance I made a conscious effort to Keep It Simple and see how far just the two stamps would go.

 Here's the basic card format, and a window to help place the image on the card -

While waiting for my supplies to arrive, out came the handmade paper from the 1990s and the variation-experimentation really got going -

I found that printing went better if the paper was slightly damp, which was achieved by making a damp pack, as in japanese woodblock printing. This also flattened out any wrinkles in the paper.

This started from an attempt to make more of these small map monoprints -

Printed on tissue, then both the handmade paper and the print are waxed, and the wax holds them together - with some types of tissue paper -

It just wasn't working, so I got the eraser stamps and just played.

Next, stamping directly on cards. 100 or so blanks are on hand, to be sold in aid of MSF.