Welcome!

I will be adding and refining this page with videos and frequently asked questions as I go to help you on your Halftone Stamp journey.

Prepare for hefty detail since its not a common way to use a very old tool. Reading this is not necessary for use. They are still just stamps after all so feel free to dive right in but there may be a nugget or two below that might prevent some struggles.

 

Be prepared for imperfections

The nature of these stamps is the marriage between machine accurate dot size/spacing with the characteristics of traditional media. They aren't a replacement for Deleter Screentones and cannot achieve some of the things they can and the same goes for Repeater Stamps. They aren't necessarily faster or easier or whatever compared to Deleter. The only thing I can say for sure is there is zero risk of the halftones falling off. The rest is up to you!

New characteristics of the stamps are what make them exciting for me. The textures, the risk, the experimentation and the control.

Paint one end of the stamp with water and the other with ink and stamp a unique gradient.

Mess around!

 

Practice

These being the age-old stamp might make it seem like everything will be pretty straightforward, and much of it is, but there is a learning curve. Like any art tool you will need to get the feel for few things to get your desired effect.

The more condensed the dots/lines are the harder you can press down for a good strong print but these are easier to overload. The tighter surface area between the dots combined with the surface tension of your ink can make it easy for ink to want to stick between the dots of the stamp.

The more spaced the dots/lines are the more gentle you have to press down. Picture a bed of nails but made of rubber. The more nails the less each nail will compress and bend. Fewer rubber nails means each nail will take more weight and begin to flex and bend. For the stamps, this will give you an oval rather than a circle dot. This can be a cool effect as well but obviously not when you are wanting some regular dots.

How much ink should go on the felt inside your tray? There will be now doubt once you start testing it out. Start out small and spread the ink on the felt with a brush. Only one piece of felt is needed at a time and can be rinsed and reused.

Applying the ink with the brush provided or your paintbrush is a very simple way to insure your stamp is loaded nicely with ink but can be more time consuming. You can also dry of your brush and pick up any excess ink that might have accumulated.

Usage and Care

You will not be able to line up a stamp side by side for a larger area without noticeable gap or overlap. You might get lucky with some of the thicker line stamps but this will likely only bring you heartache. Since there is no variation between the dots of the stamp and they are exactly the same size and distance from each other, the slightest, tiniest deviation (a fraction of a millimeter) will be a noticeable gap or overlap in the tessellation effect. There will be larger stamps coming soon!

The Tray and Felt: I haven't wanted to get into the logistics of finding and buying from a supplier of standard ink pads so this was my low cost, high control solution. Being able to use ink washes, watercolor, colored inks, etc. has always been the high point of using these myself. It can be a bit messy but the store bought stamp pads were never a strong enough black for my taste though you will get a very consistent load on to the stamp. The felt is dirt cheap and easy to find on amazon and the dollar store, which is where yours came from. The tray and felt were included so you could experiment and get stamping right out of the gate without having to trek to the store for an ink pad or find some felt to chop up. You can use paper towel and find success or brush your ink on with the cheap foam brush and use the tray for loose change. Try out an old t-shirt. I thought a sponge would have worked the best but it was awful. 

Cleaning: Whatever you do, do not use your fingernail to fish out a piece of lint or eraser from inside the rubber. These stamps are super tough and can take quite a beating but it is very easy to accidentally damage individual dots in the rubber. Like us, they are strongest together. At all times, use a soft bristled brush to dust and clean your stamps. A tooth brush has the right feel and can be used with warm water, hand soap or dish soap for cleaning. You can scrub them pretty hard. The smaller the dots the more delicate. I've only ever damaged one stamp when I was testing a wooden bristled brush for BBQs.

Masking: I have explored many ways and materials to use to block off the areas of a piece I do not want dots to varying degrees of success. The most successful is the parchment paper used for baking. Tracing paper is a close second but the fibers make it frustrating to cut. Standard printer paper is doable but a pain as well. You will have to press very hard to flex the rubber passed the thickness of the paper and it will not be a smooth experience. Fortunately parchment paper is cheap. It is very easy to cut, partially transparent, ink does not stick to it very well, absorb or build up on it which means you can use it for a long time. You can flip the parchment over but careful of small amounts of wet ink remaining on the side previously used. The wax on the page prevents it from absorbing but can smudge off on to your page if it hasn't dried. Often times I won't even cut out the shapes but have a couple pieces I have torn and make the general shape I need that way. Cutting out small details is a breeze and since its very cheap, goofing up a piece doesn't hurt nearly as bad.

Do you tape your borders and/or gutters? I use a real sweet Japanese masking tape that is low tack and very thin but it will still obstruct the stamps performance. Waiting until after the tape has been removed in the final stages and masking areas off to apply halftones around the once taped edges makes for fewer struggles.

If you use a white ink/paint for splatters, since they tend to be quite thick to achieve opacity, they can dry raised fairly high off the surface of the page which can make stamping tricky. These are small hiccups that I have run in to and may not affect many of you. 

 

Final Thoughts

You will find that these stamps are quite small and don't cover a very large area that you may want for a background or something. Many people complained the larger stamp was too large. Many were turned off completely after I added the small stamp. Unfortunately I haven't been able to create everything all at once so I hope they keep their eyes and minds open for whats coming in the future. What I want to make next might be a two-hander! I'd call it the dot-fibrillator or the next idea I have.

A roller stamp is a possibility but it is going to be extremely difficult and costly. I am willing to go down this road but don't expect it any time soon. The logistics of it are baffling. The logistics of creating the stamps I have were way more intricate and complex than I ever could have imagined. I fully understand why no one has done it before aside from a stamp here or there. Can't I just laser a sheet of dots and wrap it around a roller? Absolutely not. Unless you want a weird and noticeable gap where both ends of the rubber meet.  I'd have to accurately laser, cut and wrap the sheet to within less than .1mm perfectly. Or I have to find a blank rubber stamp that is already in roller form and buy the necessary attachment to laser cylinders. Its doable but there is a lot working against me. The roller has to be big enough to warrant at least one rotation of dots on to your artwork before it dries out.

 

Any Questions?

Send any questions you have through the Contact Me page.