A local artist is transforming a classic office essential into tiny works of art through her latest venture — the Pink Eraser Art project.
Serena Rios McRae, also known as Cactus Clouds Art, has spent the last several months carving detailed designs into pink erasers. Her work takes the typical pink eraser found in a desk, junk drawer or bottom of a backpack and modifies them into one-of-a-kind rubber stamps.
Last October, Rios McRae was interested in participating in the “print-tober” art challenge on Instagram — a challenge where artists carve a unique rubber stamp every day for 31 days straight, typically from materials like linoleum or big rubber slabs. But, she realized she couldn’t purchase enough material for the month-long challenge due to financial constraints.
However, her friend, Jenna, had a better idea: Why not carve erasers instead?
“She posted that she carved an eraser and I was like ‘That is brilliant,’” Rios McRae said. “They come in packs of 36. So, then you have, in one box, the materials that you need for a 30 or 31-day challenge. … So, I was like, ‘I'm gonna see how much fine artwork I can do on this little tiny surface.’ And so I started following the ‘print-tober’ prompts and I did a couple of them. And immediately I was like, ‘This is really, really fun.’”
Now, the initial 31-day challenge has turned into a full-fledged passion project for Rios McRae as she has opted to create 100 of these pink eraser stamps, hopefully, she says, by the end of this summer.
The current collection of pink eraser stamps that local artist Serena Rios McRae, also known as Cactus Clouds Art, has created.
“After maybe the fifth or sixth one, I was enjoying it so much,” she said. “I have ADHD and I don't finish a lot of stuff. And part of ADHD is that you flip to something new because your brain is always seeking novelty. I've stuck with this thing for the longest that I've ever stuck with anything. … I decided to do 100 of them, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to do it every single day because then it would feel like work. And then it wouldn't be fun anymore. So I called it the 100-day project. But it's more like the 100 eraser project because it doesn't have to be one a day.”
As of writing this, Rios McRae had already completed over 70 eraser carvings depicting little moments from her life, which she says is her biggest inspiration.
Some of her recent designs include a pine tree from a family camping trip, a Taiyaki (Japanese-inspired fish-shaped ice cream cone) that her kids enjoyed during a trip to Phoenix and a Snorlax (a Pokémon character), inspired by her recent purchase of a giant Snorlax pool float that she bought for her kids to enjoy on a trip to Mexico.
Typically, a single eraser carving takes between 20 to 45 minutes to complete depending on the intricacy of the design. But, regardless of the design, Rios McRae includes a thick border around each of the erasers — a signature element of her design that makes each rubber stamp appear as a piece of framed art and is easily recognizable to viewers.
Serena Rios McRae has been stamping all of her pink eraser carvings into a sketchbook to document the project. Her goal is to complete 100 stamps by the end of the summer.
While some artists will sketch out their design on paper first and then transfer it onto the eraser, Rios McRae sketches her designs directly on the eraser and then carves out the image using a linoleum cutting tool.
“They know exactly what they're doing. I never know exactly what I'm doing,” she said. “Which is part of the fun for me, because when you're doing work like this in one color, it’s kind of like a puzzle. And you have to figure out the foreground, background, highlights, sunshine or nighttime. You have to figure out how you're going to carve all the pieces out while creating an actual image and not just weird shapes.”
After carving out the design, she’ll place the newly formed stamp onto an ink pad and then press it onto a piece of paper to see if her design transfers as desired.
“When you put the ink on it, you kind of get a little reveal,” she said. “But then when you stamp it, you can really see it. Every time I'm like, ‘OK, let's see if these scribbly lines look like a dog.’ And then if it looks like a dog, I'm like, ‘Whoa, I did it!’”
You can currently find prints of all of Rio McRae’s eraser stamps for sale on her website.
‘It went crazy viral’
Over the last few months, the pink eraser art trend has blown up on social media with hashtags like #PinkEraserArt receiving 3 million views on TikTok (along with other similar hashtags also reaching millions of views).
Rios McRae decided that she was first going to post about the Pink Eraser Art project anonymously on TikTok as a little experiment to see if she could break down the platform’s algorithm.
“I didn't tell anybody that I was doing it and I started posting the eraser project on TikTok and I think by the fourth video, it went crazy viral,” she said. “So it started first on TikTok, now it's more viral on Instagram.”
Currently, Rios McRae has over 17,000 followers and 700,000 likes on TikTok. One of her Pink Eraser Art project Reels has nearly 200,000 likes on Instagram.
A few of the prints that Serena Rios McRae created with her pink eraser stamps that she hand-carved.
Due to the positive reception of the project, Rios McRae now offers an online eraser carving class through Instagram Subscriptions. The subscription is $3 a month and subscribers are able to carve along with Rios McRae during an exclusive Instagram Live segment, have access to a library of previous lessons and receive additional carving tips.
So far, Rios McRae has received subscribers from across the world, including a subscriber who lives in Egypt.
“I enjoy teaching a lot,” she said. “I taught watercolor classes before the pandemic, I usually taught four to six classes around town, every month. … But I stopped doing that during the pandemic and I haven't picked it back up. But being able to teach just on Instagram, just from a live stream is really cool. And it's one of my favorite things. And so that's why so many people are getting excited and inspired about it.”
As for the future, Rios McRae would like to see this project keep going, even if it’s just for fun.
But once the 100-eraser project is completed, she would like to see it displayed in a local art gallery for the community to check out, get inspired and possibly attempt their own eraser carvings.
“It's so accessible that anybody can just be like, ‘I'm just gonna try this art form,’” she said. “I don't have to spend a ton of money to get all the supplies and it's not complicated. And you can just say, ‘Oh, I found one in the bottom of my backpack. Let's carve it.’ … It doesn't have to be fancy. And it doesn't have to be perfect. And art doesn't have to be seen by anybody else to be good for you.”
