I am going to show how I carved a butterfly stamp.  I began with a picture of a gatekeeper butterfly that's been flitting about my garden the summer of 2001 and obligingly settled long enough for me to take this photo.

Ready to make a test print!

First print!

This is what the stamp looks like at this stage.  And now is the time to make a decision as to how we want the end stamp to look.

I decided to cut out as much of the design as possible, leaving only thin lines to print out the image.

I COULD have left larger areas to take up ink.  But leaving only thin lines enables me to put different colours in the spaces thus created.

Time to swap gouges.  Bring on the biggy!

Here you can see how I'm using the big gouge - the one that cuts a squared off trench - to quickly remove large areas of rubber.

How to do Rubber Carving

HOW TO CARVE:
in ten (or so) easy steps.
I am in the UK so all the things I use are available here in Britain or online.

Here's the final print after tidying:

First I printed out the picture about one and a half inches high and two inches wide.
then I traced the image onto greaseproof paper - my version of tracing paper! <g>
Then I transfered the tracing onto the rubber, by rubbing on the reverse side with the blunt end of the pencil.
Voila!

Then I went over the faint tracings with the pencil and then using a craft knife I cut around the tracing on the rubber.  See left.  

Then I began the actual carving.  See below - the first cut using the narrow groove gouge.

Second print: Here you can see all the little tiny lines and faint places where the ink has transfered from the slight inacuracies - the bits left after carving, and before tidying.

Here's the final carving all finished.
Although sometimes I can't stop fiddling, so I may tweak it here and there.  
Those shavings are the total waste from this particular carving.   Small isn't it?

Here above are two examples of finished images, the green is still wet, that's why it's shiny - I used a green embossing pen.

And here's what you can get when you play around with embossing powder!
Not bad huh?
Fran Baker