Altered Art Techniques: Clear
Rubber Stamps

Clear rubber stamps, or, to be more accurate, clear polymer stamps, were pioneered in the early 1990s by Barbara Gray of Clarity Stamp, who was then based in California, USA, but has now relocated to Kent in south-east England.

Nowadays, of course, they are widely available from a large number of different manufacturers, for the most part in themed sets.

It's even possible to obtain kits and products that allow you to make your own polymer stamps at home, whether you just want to make a few unique stamps for your own use, or are interested in producing professional-quality stamps for sale.

Almost all clear polymer stamps are available unmounted, the notable exceptions being those produced by Clarity Stamp, most of whose stamps are supplied mounted on their unique patented acrylic handle.

This practice offers a number of advantages to the artist: they are cheaper, take up less room when stored, and are lighter and therefore less expensive to obtain by mail order.

It's usual to mount polymer stamps on clear acrylic blocks, which offer the obvious advantage of allowing you to see exactly where you're placing your stamped image. This allows a more accurate placement, and the easy alignment of multiple images. The blocks themselves are becoming more widely available in a variety of sizes from specialist shops and craft stores.

It may be worth mentioning again here the unique clear acrylic handles on which most Clarity Stamps are mounted. You may find these easier to grip, and we believe that these give an even more accurate and smudge-free placement than a block, not least because your view of the image is less likely to be obscured by your hand as you stamp.