Rubber Stamp Carving for Clay Projects

Darn!  I knew I've been gone from here for a while....  but almost two months?  That's a first one for me...  I think.  Maybe I was gone longer before and I just don't remember.  Anyway, this is what I've been doing all this time.....being sick twice!  And more recently for three weeks but I am happy to be feeling better since yesterday and getting ready to create stuff and catch up with some custom orders that I have been able to slowly work on as I was sick....

I took a clay class online, and you know what the beauty is of online classes? No grades! so while I watched the videos did the first project before getting sick.... and that was it.... first project and I stopped. I don't have to worry about an A+ or an F!  I love it.  Well, in this class one of the many projects we did were carved stamps on rubber.  I did a few a couple weeks ago playing with it, just random carves which I will do a post later.  But today this is what I did.

Transfer image onto rubber, I found image on google,

Carved stamp and outside areas, it took me about 20 minutes

Played with ink pads to see how image came out.

I want to eventually use the rubber stamps to do monoprints in clay, do direct stamping on clay and use portion of design for pendants, and use on paper crafts as well.  The uses are many and it really saves on manufactured stamps for which I can say I have a  big selection, but it's nice to know this is something I made.  The design of this stamp is a lotus flower, it needs a little tweaking and cleaning around.

Stamped a piece of clay to see what cleaning needs to be done to improve piece.

The top image with the blue background is also a technique that I will be using in clay,  underglaze pieces with a color background and bring out the image with a different color glaze.  The results will be great and colorful as you can use as many colors as you want.  Now, do you think this looks like a lotus flower?

Anyway there is tons of tutorials for carved rubber stamps on google, so a quick search will give you lots of ideas.