We find our images in many kinds of books, from children's stories to old farm journals. Often we're intrigued by the comments that go with the images and feel they give an added dimension to the stamp. The comments are often quaint, often dated, maybe even politically incorrect, but always interesting. Enjoy!
Our stamps are made from scanned images of vintage etchings. Since etchings are made up of lines, they can be hard to make stamps from because the process of creating the rubber copy (vulcanizing) does not handle fine detail well. To accommodate this characteristic of vulcanizing, many of the people producing stamps from vintage etchings manually edit the image by going into the computer file of the scan and taking out a lot of the lines.At Whiskey Creek, we believe this often degrades the quality of the images by removing much of the detail that gives them their special character. One of the things we find fascinating about etchings is how skillful these artists were in giving their work tone and expression by how they drew lines. We feel this is a lost art-and wish to honor it.
The magnesium plates from which rubber stamps are created have had the lines of the image etched into them. The bigger and fatter the lines in an image, the deeper the plate can be etched so that the blank areas of the stamp are as far away from the surface of the paper you're printing on as possible. This makes your job easier because you don't have so much trouble keeping ink off the blank areas of your stamp as you ink it.With vintage etchings, the lines are so fine and so close together the lines on the vulcanizing plate must be etched fairly lightly. If they were etched very deeply, all the lines would run together into one big blob. This means you must handle a Whiskey Creek stamp a bit differently than many of the stamps you own.
Generally, the interplay between the characteristics of the papers and the inks used when stamping is hardly noticeable. With a Whiskey Creek stamp, the quality of the impression you get depends very much upon this interplay.If a Whiskey Creek stamp is used on a highly absorbant paper, the ink may bleed enough to cause all the fine lines to run together.
To offset the paper absorbancy problem, some recommend using pigmented inks with stamps made from etchings. These inks do not bleed on absorbant papers such as card stock. Pigmented inks, however, are thicker than dye inks, so the thickness of the ink itself may clog up some of the fine lines, especially if applied heavily.
Embossing generally doesn't work well, although a clear embossing overlay can be very effective. So what's a stamper to do? We have found Whiskey Creek stamps work very well with medium-colored dye inks on glossy stock or vellum. In fact, we have found the fine detail in our stamps can be noticeably clearer even after the stamped image dries.
With these characteristics in mind, we encourage stampers to experiment, coming up with their favorite combination of papers and inks to create breathtaking cards form these fine old images!
Just as the fine lines in the original etching don't vulcanize well, neither do the lines in a photocopy of the stamped image survive the copying process. In our catalog, we use the scan of the original image sent to the vulcanizer, not a scan of the actual stamped image.With a copy of the original image, you are able to see how the line detail transfers to the stamp, something that might be very helpful in your painting or coloring of your card.
Whiskey Creek is an angel company. You may sell any cards or items you make by hand with our stamps. The copyright protects Whiskey Creek's images from being used in the making of any manufactured items without arranging for licensing fees with us.
About Whiskey Creek Stamps (Home Page)
© Copyright 1998-2003 Whiskey Creek Document Design. All rights reserved. No portion of this site, including all the text and images on this home page and any of the separate pages, may be copied, retransmitted, reposted, duplicated or otherwise used without the express written permission of Whiskey Creek Document Design.