Here is the latest in my series of original SteemStamps..
The One Steem Orca SteemStamp features a retro two-tone postage stamp design depicting a breaching Killer Whale against a distant landmass.
Below I've “raised the ink” a bit by applying a bevel filter to the green..
The strip of 4 coil stamps below feature a red frame from an alternative “engraving” that I prepared earlier.. The simpler design I think reduces better.
I'd like to present y’all with a First Day Cover featuring an aqua version of the heavier frame.. complete with our very own Steemit cancellation!
A bit of the process.. I’m scatching away the black india ink layer that’s covering this smooth white plastery panel.
I wear some cheap magnified reading glasses so that I get real deep into.. pushing the limits of eye-hand-coordination (at least for myself).. with a 2" etching being just over twice the height of a real postage stamp.
The killer whale art was done separately.. you can see traces of the 1847 design that I has been messing around with..
On the left is a very straight-up scan of the final etching. Before scanning I painted a few areas with India ink to clean things up a bit. I also applied a white and black point in Photoshop in order to dissolve some marks and hairlines scratches. On the right is the inverted image now Positive as printed ink would be.
Why not just draw the design with ink? Well there are two reasons:
Firstly the sharp steel tip of that stylus can create AMAZINGLY thin lines... way thinner than any pen that must deposit a liquid.
Secondly, the carving-away of negative space has a UNIQUE look when that spacial relationship becomes inverted visually when printed. Instead of “outling forms and filling in shapes” as in drawing in the positive with say a pencil... when one draws in the negative, one fleshes-out the form that he sees in much the way of a sculptor.. in that he/she must ALLOW the shape to form as opposed to DIRECTING it to appear. Does that make sense?
I leave you with the very RARE, possibly unique,
INVERTED Purple 1-Cent Orca:
See the 2 Steem MINNOW steemstamp here.
All content 100% original by John Deecken
