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Ink Staining on Stamped Images 

By Lea Cioci CPD CPT
Certified Professional Demonstsrator/Instructor/Designer
acioci@starband.net
www.picturetrail.com/leac  

Vintage, Aging, and Heritage motifs have captured the paper arts trends during the past few years.  Vintage elements are commonly defined by the look of a century or so ago - an expression that combines design elements that were popular during the Victorian and Art Deco eras.  This time period is considered to be from the early 1800’s to the early 1900’s.  

Ink pads have always been a staple product to stampers and paper artists.  Imaginative stampers have found that using ink directly to paper (DTP), on the edges of paper, and with a brush can enhance and change the look of an original stamped piece in dramatic ways.  Many techniques have been taught that makes use of inks in a variety of ways. The Adirondack ink line now includes color washes, and alcohol inks that are perfect for recreating that “tinted” look.  While the look of Vintage and aging is usually represented in creams, browns, and black; in this era, many photographs were tinted with bright colors.   

My approach to tinting stamp images includes the use of a soft watercolor brush to transfer ink directly from the ink pad to the surface after stamping your images.  This method is chosen because if re-inkers are used, too much color is transferred from the brush to the surface.  Although it takes time and patience to transfer ink directly from the ink pad using a brush, the results are soft, rich, and muted.  Using the corner of an ink pad and having a re-inker to refresh the pad once it is used, makes this method effortless. 

While I have used pigment inks of all types, I found that Ranger’s Adirondack ink, and Clearsnap’s Ancient Page ink work well for this method.  The Adirondack inks are rich in saturation of color, yet muted.  These inks are perfect for the re-creating photo tinting of the 1900’s.    

While many question the usefulness of so many types and brand ink pads out on the market, find the ones that work best with the styles and techniques you are using in your art.  It is amazing how the many types of ink pads are a “must have” for the various techniques out there for paper arts.

Supplies:

• True Beauty Stamp image – Art by Moonlight
• Label Word Stamp image – The Artful Lexicon
• Flower Stamp image - Magenta
• Imperial Purple VersaFine ink (Tsukineko)
• Cranberry Adirondack ink (Ranger Ink)
• Lettuce Adirondack ink (Ranger Ink)
• Denim Adirondack ink (Ranger Ink)
• Terra Cotta ink (Ranger Ink)
• Old Linen Distressed Ink (Ranger Ink)
• White cardstock 4 ½ x 5 ½
• Patterned paper scrap 4 ½ wide
• Accent button
• Soft ¼ square watercolor brush, and liner watercolor brush
• Re-inker to all inks to refresh ink pad
• Water
• Scissor
• Zots small Craft Dots (Therm O Web)
• Sticky Dots (Therm O Web)

Instructions:

1. Stamp woman’s face from True Beauty sheet with VersaFine Imperial Purple ink onto a ¼ (4 ½ x 5 ½) card stock vertically.
    
2. Starting with the Old Linen ink, swipe the square watercolor brush over the surface of the pad to pick up ink color. Be sure to only swipe in the corner of the pad as a safety measure.  Since these are water based inks, you may want to wet your brush first and wipe off excess water so you have a damp brush. Softly brush the ink color over the face of the woman working the color into the surface.  Repeat this process until her whole face is stained. This will give her soft, flesh tones to her face.
    
3. Repeat this process of transferring and staining the image using Denim for the flowers in the woman’s hair, Cranberry for her cheeks and lips (using very little color), Terra Cotta for the woman’s hair, and Lettuce for the background.  Don’t worry if the background colors are not totally even in tone, this gives texture and depth to image.  Use the liner brush when you want to work in small areas such as the woman’s lips.
    
4. On the 4 ½” scrap of patterned paper use your square brush and stain the surface with Denim ink.  Stamp the flower image using the Denim ink full strength, tapping the stamp in the ink like you would for stamping images.  Cut and fit the paper scrap to fit below the woman’s image.  Following mfg.’s instructions for appling Sticky Dots to the back of the patterned paper and mount on the cardstock. 
    
5. Adhere the small accent button using the small craft ZOT.

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