 In this video, we'll be learning relief printing methods by making our own foam stamps. Hello, welcome to Print Make Time. My name is Richard and I work at the studio. The studio is a makerspace, located inside the Long Beach Public Library. In this Print Make Time mini-series, we'll be learning a variety of print making projects that you can make at home. Today, we'll be making foam stamps. Stamps are a type of relief printing. Relief printing means that you'll be printing from physically raised designs or images. The process works by applying ink to your stamp, and then placing your stamp onto whatever you want to print it on, typically paper. Whatever is raised will be what ink is placed on, and what actually prints. But how do you decide what should be raised and what shouldn't be, and how do you raise your image anyway? Well, the process has traditionally been done by carving designs out of other objects. Relief printing has its origins in China, all the way back to 100 AD, where artisans would carve designs from blocks of wood. Print makers would carve out what they didn't want to appear on their printing surface, and the raised surface that wasn't carved would be what ink was applied to. Relief printing and the invention of movable type has been key in distributing information all across the world. All you would have to do is put in the time and work into creating a block, then you could print it as many times as you'd like, or as long as the block lasts. To get started making a foam stamp, here are some materials we'll need. Craft foam, a scrap piece of cardboard, stamp pads. If you don't have any stamp pads, you can use a felt tip marker. Use whatever colors you'd like to print with. You'll need some glue, a pair of scissors, a ballpoint pen, and paper to print on. Let's first start with the basics, making shapes. Start by deciding which shapes you'd like to make. You can use a felt tip marker to lightly draw your shapes onto your craft foam, being careful not to press down too firmly so you don't dent the foam. We'll do that a little later. Or, if you're feeling confident, you can start cutting out your shapes from your craft foam with a pair of scissors, which is what I'll be doing. I found that if I rotate my foam while keeping my scissors steady, I tend to have more control over what I'm cutting. Let's speed this up a little. After your shapes are cut out, you'll need to support them for the printing process so that they don't bend. Cut or break down your cardboard so you have a nice flat surface to glue your foam onto. Apply some glue to the back of your foam shape. A little goes a long way. I like to glue my shapes close to the edge of my cardboard scraps to help save material. Press down firmly so that your glue adheres properly. While this shape dries, you can repeat the process for the rest of your foam shapes. If you accidentally used too much glue, you can use a scrap piece of foam or cardboard to help clean it up. Once the glue dries, you can now cut out the shapes, leaving about an eighth of an inch border around your shape. It doesn't have to be perfect though. This is just to help support our foam when we print. Go ahead and repeat this process with the rest of your foam stamps. Now, cut another sliver of cardboard out. This will work as our tab to hold our stamps so we don't get ink on our fingers. I like to cut out a small rectangle with the width, be no bigger than the width of my shape, and the length being about 3 inches. There's no exact size your tab needs to be. It just needs to be wide enough so that you can comfortably handle it when it's glued to the back of your foam stamp. Fold your tab lengthwise. Now, fold one end back about half an inch down. Flip your tab over and repeat the process to the other side. It should look something like this, just big enough so that it fits between your thumb and index finger comfortably. Now, let's glue it all together. Apply some glue to the center fold like so, and some to the top folds. Once you do that, you can now attach it to the back of your foam stamp. Make sure to press the tab down firmly so that the glue adheres properly. You can also press it against your table. This will really help make sure that the glue sticks. Now, go ahead and repeat this process with the rest of your stamps. If you'll notice, I'm estimating the width of my stamp, but I'm always making the length the same. About 3 inches. I'll make the tab for this squiggle really big, just to show you the different sizes you can make, and how there isn't one correct size. Once dry, you can now cut off any overhanging cardboard from your tab. Repeat this process with the rest of your stamps. Now, ready to ink the stamp. Open the stamp pad and press your foam block into the pad. You'll get a nice even coat by repeatedly lifting and pressing your stamp into the ink pad, but also constantly changing directions. Look at your stamp. If you notice that ink is getting on the cardboard, you can cut that off. Go ahead and continue to re-ink. And now we're ready to test our stamp. Holding the tab of your stamp, press your stamp down onto a piece of paper and apply a bit of pressure throughout your stamp. This will help ensure an even print. Make sure not to move your stamp around once you place it down. When you're ready, carefully lift your stamp straight up and check it out. Look at your print and see if there are any areas that need to be better inked, or need more pressure when printed. It's common to have a bit of inconsistencies on your first test print, so don't worry if there are spots that aren't showing up. You can also get some pretty neat effects by printing your stamp a few more times, without re-inking it. If you don't have a stamp pad, now's the time to try inking our stamps with the felt tip marker. Apply a consistent amount of ink on your entire stamp. Now press down and see what happens. Here is an example of a stamp that didn't have enough even pressure when I pressed it into the paper. The ink that got on the cardboard backing also printed. If you'd like to get rid of that, remember just to cut off those pieces and apply a consistent amount of pressure throughout your stamp. There, that's much better. Here are a couple examples of things I've made with my shapes. I had fun using my stamps to make these characters. You'll notice I use the same stamp to represent all sorts of things. This squiggle line makes up the arms, legs, and even the skirt of this dancer. And this muscle man is made up of mostly squares. I also use a pen to draw faces, hands, and feet to give these characters a little more personality. Method two, using your ballpoint pen to create a relief. Start by taking a felt tip pen or marker and draw your design lightly on your craft foam. Try not to make any indentations. Our drawing will show up backwards once we print them, so if you're doing the text, make sure to write it out backwards. Once you have your image drawn, now it's time to decide what you'd like to show up on your stamp and what you don't want to show up. We'll be using our ballpoint pen to trace our design and press down what we don't want to print. Here are two examples of the same design. One, I decided to press the letters down, and the other, I decided to press down the negative space. I'll be making a little house as an example to show you how I go about making my own relief. First, I'll cut out the shape of the house. Then I'll glue my foam shape onto some cardboard. Once the glue is dry, I'll start drawing the design of the house. Starting with the roof, then moving on to the windows and door of the house. Once my design is drawn, I'll go back over the lines I've made and make sure I press down firmly. Go over your design multiple times. This will help ensure that no ink will show up in those spaces. Once your design is drawn and traced, you can now repeat the process of cutting out your design and attaching a tab. I went ahead and made a couple more little houses and a cloud. Test out your print. If there are any marks that aren't showing up that you intended not to print, go over them again once more with your ballpoint pen and test it out again. The exciting thing about printmaking is the fact that you can experiment, create multiple prints, draw on, and add your own designs. Check out our other make time videos to see how you can combine some of these methods to make all sorts of new creations. Here, I made a stamp with a blank bait slot to keep track of when I made a specific leaf rubbing. This stamp gives my rubbing prints a consistent look. Check out Studio Guide Ryan's video on how to make your own rubbings from natural and cool texture materials. I also decided to stamp a design onto a marble monoprint. Check out Studio Guide Courtney's video on how to make your own marble monoprints. Now, let's take a look at what some other library staff made using this technique. Thanks for joining me today to do some printmaking, and feel free to leave a comment down below on what you'll be making. And I'll see you next time on Make Time.