block printing transfer method

posted on May 11th, 2023 by Lee Cattarin

A pink block of carving material with a printed design of a bird attached to it. The paper has been partially rubbed away (process described in this post) to reveal the inked design on the carving material.

materials

for transfer

speedy-carve
- I have since also used moo carve and been successful
laserjet printed or xerox’d image, preferably something with high contrast
acrylic gel medium - I use Golden Soft Gel Matte
paintbrush
brayer

for carving

carving tool(s) such as speedball carving tool or flexcut carving tools
- I use a narrow V tool from flexcut and large/small U tools from speedball at current

for printing

my favorite stamping ink at current is VersaFine
(edit 18 Sep 2023) I have since used Speedball fabric block printink inks. Preferable for fabric.

process

Cut printout and speedy-carve to desired overall shape
Paint an even layer of gel medium on both printout (inked side) and speedy-carve
Align the gel’d printout to the gel’d block, and press on using a brayer
Let dry. Really. Let it dry. Leave it be.
Dampen the back of the printout with a sponge or wet finger, then gently rub to remove paper
Done correctly, this should leave your image (and a thin layer of gel medium) on the speedy-carve

references

category: reference