Block Printing on Wrapping Paper
Lesson 3 from: Beginning Stamping - Large-scale printingMeagan Lewis
Block Printing on Wrapping Paper
Lesson 3 from: Beginning Stamping - Large-scale printingMeagan Lewis
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Lesson Info
Block Printing on Wrapping Paper
Um what I'm gonna be using is uncoated paper gift wrap I'm so I guess different like stationary or scrapbooking stores or um art stores they hopefully will carry something like this it's basically like wrapping paper that doesn't have a sheen to it you don't want anything with a shoot this kind of like but your paper works really well but if you can find the color kind that's really fun to work with two so that's the kind of paper that you'll want and then you go ahead and start rolling out some in care I'm gonna start with um black just one color so that you can kind of see what it looks like as it's rolled out and um and how much you need and then uh waken show like mixing some colors too okay, I'm gonna get let's see a little bit of this paper off weigh it down with some of the other things on my desk here you can tape it if you want some nice I love this washi tape or artist tape something that's going to be easy to take off after I'm done printing. Okay, so I got my stand and I've...
got my block printing ink and what I want to do is squeeze out basically like a row about the width of my stamp out onto my plexi glass sheet or where whatever you're rolling your ink out onto he also want um a breyer that's you know close to the width of your stamp and I am just going to get a little bit of that ink and start rolling one to recommend meghan does it have to be a very smooth shiny surface? Yeah, preferably smooth and shiny so an old baking sheet you can get these are really easy to find these pre cut sheets you know, like a frame shop or the framing department of your craft store they'll probably have them you know, next to like the pre cut mats and frames um you could use a piece of glass, but you know, you want to be careful with that obviously I wouldn't recommend like, you know, rolling out a piece of foil or something because as you roll the foil just gonna lift up it's going toe tower part really easily, so use something that yes pretty, you know, sturdy and flat and shiny it does help, so what I've done is I've just kind of I rolled my breyer a little bit into the ink and I've pulled it back I haven't gone for all of the ink just yet because it's a lot harder to take think away than it is to add a little bit more if you need it and I am just ruling a little bit out and you notice I'm not going back and forth if I was going back and forth basically the only the half that half of the breyer is getting inked and this this side hasn't even rolled to that other part of the cat. So when I want to do is I roll it up, I lift it, I roll it up, I lift it. And that way the breyer keeps rotating, and this is the part that it's just really hard to describe other than just kind of like, you have to kind of listen for it, I guess if you can't hear it at all, there's not enough ink if it sounds really gloppy and like you got too much ink but it's almost kind of like I hope that sound is translating. Okay, good. So that's about the right amount of ink and if it's not enough, I have a feeling I might need a little bit more. I can add more. Um and I'm just going to roll it onto the stamp and definitely not enough, especially since this is the first one. There wasn't any income there to begin with, so I'm going to need to get more ink on there. Don't you get a better finish? By rolling it on would you have a turn the stamp face down onto the way you rolled out the awesome question yeah, I never thought about that a lot of people like to do that they like to roll it out and then they kind of think of it as a stand pad you don't want to do that it's going to slide and you'll lift it off and it'll just have like little mountains of ink in certain areas and no incan certain areas with this block printing ink because it is that sticky consistency you really need the breyer and you really need to roll it on you're just going to get a nice smooth finish on but I don't know if you can notice here I'm kind of going I'm going in one direction but then I'm also kind of going in another direction I just really want to make sure that there are any you know, kind of lines of of thicker inc overlapping. Another thing is I love this clear block because I can kind of tell that already rolled off under the edge um and I don't want that to print on my wrapping paper so I'm just gonna wipe that off before I printed I don't want to mess up my whole paper here just in case I don't have enough I think so I'm going to make a little test print you guys ready I'm not perfect. I can see some issues. One. Still maybe not enough ink and maybe not enough pressure. Little patchy right there. But it's still kind of cool. I like it, it's. Good. So I am gonna add a little bit more ink. A lot of times, people also asked how quickly this block printing ink dries. Um, it drives fairly quickly if you're if I was printing a large scale piece like this, which I am, obviously I would probably leave it out for a couple hours just to be really sure that it's dry by the time I use it for my gift wrap. Um, but yeah, I mean, just use a little bit of ink at a time. You can keep squeezing it out. Um and and adding more. You don't want to have a big piece of a big thing of ink on your plate just sitting there while you're doing something else and then it dries up pretty good. Yeah, I might tell you guys about a little other something here. Um, there are additives that you can add to the ink inc extender. And in crete harder inc extender is going tio extend the ink if it's s and kind of a little bit thick you need to kind of thin it out a little bit you want to stretch it out a little bit you can add a little bit of extender it's transparent to your ink in crete harder is going to keep it from drawing so you know if you don't want it to dry as fast maybe you're layering colors on you know whatever that's also transparent I personally kind of wanna add a little bit of ink extender to my block printing it because I don't totally love how this is coming out patchy and if I add a little bit of that extender it's almost going to kind of make it a little bit smoother and more solid as I goto printed so I'm just going to add a little bit to that but that's pretty much it as faras um you know the thank extender the phone stamp is concerned and the block printing this is just one type of think that you could use with your phone stamp but you can use ink pads if you want um a lot of people that you know they get a little bit intimidated by this block printing ink also the fact that it is a little bit messy you know and you have to you know you have a little bit more clean up at the end then if you're printing with ink pads but um I guess the main benefit I see to block printing ink is that, um it goes really quickly if you're printing a lot at one time because once you get the bank set up it's just kind of like roll print role print roll prints every single time, every single time yeah, that's another excellent question like you don't yeah, yeah, every single time because pretty much all the it just came off in that one print there, so I add a little bit of that ink extender let's see how that helps? Um, I can already see that the ink is a little bit smoother almost, um it's almost like I don't know more wet, more showing in a way another thing that you can dio if, um, you're not getting a nice, solid print is, um, think about what might be underneath your paper right now. I'm printing on this awesome table, but it's got that kind of a wood grain to it and it's not completely smooth, so I might consider um yeah there's like there's a grain in the wood, but I might consider putting like either a piece of felt underneath or a magazine or like a stack of news print is the mat there? Oh, cool, you know what I'm going to actually use um, excuse me and would you ever use the roller or clean roller on top of the design to press down to make sure you get an even print on you could may don't make me different yeah I just I just use my hands yeah, you could you could though there there are things called there's this tool called a barren which is basically like a set up a flat circle and has a handle to it and so you can it's kind of cool it helps you kind of press out nice and even um evenly but you don't need a baron ok I just want to try one more thing and then I'm gonna switch to doing another color I just wanted to show you guys for the sake of um take a bit I have a really nice cutting matt here to the sight of me too which would probably help smooth out everything but I have a feeling that what the paper and the stanton need is just a little bit more cushion to get everything pressing together really nicely so I put a towel underneath my paper. Another cool thing about um this water based ink is that when I'm finished I can just scrape off the extra inc um if I didn't mix colors I could if there was enough I could certainly put it back into the container but then I can also just rinse it under the sink it's pretty easy to clean up. I mean, yes, it can get messy, but, um, you don't need any chemicals or solvents or cleaners or anything like that, just water and pat it dry, and you're good to go, okay, so I've got that towel underneath my paper. I'm hoping that I'll give a little more cushion. Yeah, big difference. Yes. So if you're having problems with that, it could be you just need a little bit more ink, and it could be the surface that you're printing on. So I used a towel. A magazine could work, just experiment. That's. The whole thing about printmaking is just kind of experimenting and that's about it.
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Av Ac
Very interesting. Good information. She explains very well the whole process.