I’ve been doing some research into calico prints from the early to mid 20^th century, the time that my great-grandmother Grace would have been quilting. I’ve also been taking a closer look at the photos that I have of the crazy quilt that hangs at the Veazie Congrational Church (pictured above), the one quilt that I know of still in existence that she helped make.

All of this was to try to come up with appropriate patterns for the encaustic monotypes for Grace’s memorial quilt. Last week I went on a shopping trip to gather some materials to help with the process. Here’s what I came up with.

Hand cut stamp

This is a product for making your own stamps with basic linoleum cutting tools. I drew a pattern out then transferred it over and carved it out. I need to try printing some more to see if it will really work. I have some shina wood on order to try out, I think it will print better.

Printing with pre-made wooden stamp

I found these bins of scroll work wooden pieces at JoAnn Fabric (I think they are intended to be painted and made into ornaments or some such thing) and immediately thought they might print well. I also got a bag of little wooden spools and then glued them on for handles and wa-lah, stamps!

The basic way to print with a stamp with encaustic is laid out in the picture above. You melt a pool of encaustic paint, let the stamp sit in the pool of paint for a time and then stamp it on the paper. As you can see in the picture, the paper that I’m printing on is actually on the Paula Roland HotBox on top of a layer of newsprint. This keeps the paper warm and helps the paint from the stamp transfer onto the paper. This is the same process I use when I print with the collection of wooden batik blocks that I have collected.

You can see in the experimental print in the picture that I was improving somewhat as I went. With any new process it’s important to start out with an experimental print/piece for me. I was timing how long to leave the stamp on the heat before moving it to the paper, timing how long to leave it on the paper, judging how hard to press down on the stamp and tweaking the heat.