Mono-Prnting

About a month ago, I made some handmade carved stamps using Styrofoam and Fun Foam.  I was playing with the design, just having fun and seeing what I could create with these two different forms of stamp carving.

With the first one, I carved on Fun Foam:

I kept a center design, as you can see, in the upper left corner, so when I stamped the image, I would have a point to work from.

Here is how the stamp looks when printed:

I did not get the imaged quite evenly, but you can see how the line down the middle of the stamp, created a square.  I used Speedball, metallic white, block printing ink on black cardstock.  I might go in with a white metallic pen to fill in more details, or I may leave it the way it is.  Have not decided yet.  

The second carving, I did on Styrofoam:

I stained the Styrofoam with black ink, otherwise you would not be able to see the image.

Here is what this carving looks like when printed:

I used Speedball black block printing ink for this image.  To me, this looks like vines growing out from a brick wall.  I really like how the black ink makes this carving pop.

As you can see, you don't need a printing machine and printing blocks to do mono-printing.  Styro and Fun Foams work just as well.