My First Time Ever Making Embossed Prints

This will a deep dive into my creative process for the "Floral Stained Glass" lino print collection. Get ready for some yappin.

The Inspiration

This was one the first time I had sit down and carved a stamp in YEARS and I had wanted to start off with a line of illustrations that would match my more clean abstract style. I was on the bus one day and I'm the type who has to look out the window the entire ride. As I was passing through a residential area I couldn't help but to notice the subtle polish the small stained glass windows that some homes had on their front doors. I began to research a little about the materials and process on the way home and couldn't help but to fall in love with the medium.

The following week I checked out art history books about stained glass and I sat and read an entire book in one sitting! The book was "Decorative Glass of the 19th and early 29th Centuries" by Nance Fyson, It was all so fascinating, if you get a chance look up a brief history. I think the premise that resonated with me the most was the Arts and Crafts Movement that started in Scotland in the mid 1800s where artists in an attempt to rebel against the rise of automation made an effort to revitalize old methods of glass blowing and denounced using machinery to forge glass. That sentiment fully aligns with my disliking for digital prints of physical artwork and the admiration for hand made artwork. I might set aside some time to do an actual video or stream in the future that does a deep dive into stained glass history and the medium as a whole. 

Concepting 

After learning more about the process of making glass, I had to figure out a way to emulate it with paper. I had a few ideas from making paper cutouts and using plastic sheets or vellum paper to traditional illustration with ink or watercolor but I decided to go forward with a lino print. 

Lino prints are a form of block printing where you carve an image into a rubber block so when inked and stamped the space you carved out doesn't show on the paper. You'll see rubber stamps in your everyday from stamping work documents or dating paperwork. But those are made by machines. You can make your own carvings at home with custom metal carving tips and a rubber block. You can even use an eraser! 

I used to carve all the time when I was younger, making stamps for my mom's crafts but they were all not my own illustrations. I also had not carved in literal YEARS so I wanted to do illustrations that were primarily line art and focused more on form and shape rather then hyper renderings. Because when you make lino prints, you do not get shading with color. You can do cross hatching or pointillism but they do not look as clean or as well when embossing. I had sketched out a few designs that focused on florals and different border types seen in more modern stained glass styles. Photo of pencil sketches below.

Carving the Stamps

I then finalized the sketches digitally in Adobe Fresco and prepped the images to carve. There are several ways to transfer an image onto a blank stamp block. The most commo method is lead transfer, where you draw on a paper with pencil lead, flip that side onto your block, then draw on the back so when you lift the paper, the places you drew pressed leas onto the block so you have a relatively clear image. It's a good starter method but I don't like it. A far better method if you have a laserjet printer is to print you image, place it facedown on the block, dowse it in nail polish remover then gently scrape the paper with a flat tool (like a paper creaser) so when you remove the paper the printer ink will be transferred to the block. Imagine it works like those cheapy temporary tattoos. 

I worked on carving my four illustrations and even though I was rusty not having carving stamps in many years, I was still impressed with my line work. typically straight lines and corners are the most difficult since your body doesn't naturally move in straight lines. When you carve, you typically will manipulate your fingers move than your wrist or elbows so your natural movements are slightly more restricted. This series were difficult to carve since most of the lines in the drawings are straight since they emulate the straight lines used when scoring and cutting stained glass. Each stamp took 1.5-3 hours since one single flaw will be very noticeable in lino prints due to their simple black and white coloring. But I made all 4 stamps with no error! ngl I was very proud of myself. 

Embossing 

Embossing refers to any image or text that is either raised or indented into paper. You'll commonly see embossing in greeting or business cards where indentations are pressed into paper by machines. But you can do this at home with embossing powders, dye or pigment ink and a heat gun. This method involves stamping your stamp as normal but before letting the ink dry you cover it in embossing powder, tap off the excess then use the heat gun with the powder covered sections which results in a sheen layer on your paper that is glossy and looks waxy. Since embossing powders are made with resin or polymer, when heat treated it melts and binds together.

I hadn't embossing in years but was eager to try and get better. I found when using colored embossing powders there was always residual powder that would make undesired speckles. I found the best and most clean method was to use desired colored ink then dowse in clear embossing powder, that way if there are speckles of melted powder they were far less noticeable. The only real downside is the clear powder slightly reduces the opacity of the original ink used when stamping.