Chasing Bubbles

In a previous post, I showed you a small piece I made with a stamp from Fred B. Mullett. Here's another painting using one of his stamps.


I originally bought these stamps almost 15 years ago when I was planning the nursery for my first child. I wanted a boy/girl theme, and found some bedding with an under the sea theme, featuring fish, coral, seaweed, all in yellow/pink/lavender/green colors. I think I saw his stamps in Rubberstampmadness magazine. That was back when I was making rubber stamped art, and no one in Florida seemed to be doing the same. Anyway, I bought about eight stamps from him. I painted the nursery walls white, then used six different colors of paint to stamp fish all over the room. I did a border around the closet using sanddollar and starfish stamps. If I had a digital photo from that long ago, I'd show you how it looked.

I still have those stamps, and I love to use them in art because I love the real look. He made these stamps by first making a rubbing from the real fish. Because I'm painting on canvas, it's a little hard to stamp right on it since the canvas "gives." Instead, I use Stazon ink, and stamp it on white tissue paper. Then I take a wet paint brush and paint around the image. The water dissolves the tissue paper and you can get a fairly clean tear of your fish image. Then I apply polymer medium to the painted canvas. Lay the tissue down, then lightly brush more polymer medium on top. If you're too rough, you could tear the image. The polymer medium soaks into the tissue, and if you do it right, you won't see the edge of the tissue. You can add more paint or anything else over it after it dries. I'm sure you'll see more of these fish in my collages.