Sunny Hello – Painting with stamps
Posted: April 14, 2014 Filed under: Sunny Hello, Watercolour | Tags: Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer Watercolour pencils, Fabriano Watercolour Paper, Penny Black stamps, Tsukineko Memento inks 13 Comments
I have a mini tutorial today showing you how I “paint with stamps”. Sometimes I want to change something on the stamp I am using, perhaps add a stem or leaf, or leave something out. It is possible to do this with masking or, if I am watercolouring and the initial stamped image will be pale and watery it is possible to wipe some of the ink off the stamp before I stamp it onto my panel.
The photo above shows how I tape my watercolour card base down to prevent too much warping when it gets wet. I cut the card base to the finished size to begin with; the tapes create a border for the finished picture. After taping I painted water onto the panel.
I inked the sunflower heads with memento cantaloupe ink and stamped them three times. I used a pale colour because I was creating an outline image to paint. Before stamping the top and bottom flowers I wiped a bit of ink off the centre of the flower to allow me to change the flower a little when adding colour later. The leaves are inked with memento bamboo leaves ink. Rather than cut masks for the leaves I inked the stamp then wiped off the ink where it was likely to overlap with another leaf. I began adding colour to the petals with a brush, picking up ink from a watercolour pencil. I painted all the petals in yellow with fairly loose brush strokes not worrying if the colour stayed inside the lines.
When adding the colour to the petals you can see I left an oval space on the top flower where I wanted to change the shape of the dark centre. I kept the waterbrush nice and wet as I painted to create a watery blended effect on the petals. When I was happy with the yellow petals I reinked the petals on the stamp with memento tangelo ink, stamped over the colouring I had done and blended a bit more with colour from an orange pencil.
The stamp features petals which cover most of the flower’s centre as you can see in the middle flower. I did not want the flowers to be identical so I drew an oval centre on two of the flowers with watercolour pencil. I blended the darker colour and added definition by dipping the pencil tip into water before drawing with it.
I painted the leaves the same way picking up colour from a watercolour pencil with a wet paintbrush. I added more colour to the lowest leaf which is shadowed by the other too. When the flowers were almost dry I painted water around the edge of the petals then added blue to the background area blending with water to fade it out on the right hand side.
I am not very happy with the arrangement of my flowers. The poor things need stems! Its as though they have heads and shoulders but no necks! I wouldn’t follow my example in the layout of the images if I were you, but I hope you have fun with the technique.
Supplies:
Stamps: Sunny Hello (Penny Black)
Inks: Memento Cantaloupe, Tangelo, Bamboo Leaves (Tsukineko)
Pencils: Albrecht Durer Light Orange 113, Orange yellow 109, Indian Red 192, True Blue, 148, Moss Green 168 (Faber-Castell)
Cardstock: Fabriano 100% cotton hot pressed watercolour paper
Heather Telford 
We are always our hardest critics, I guess. I think your sunflowers are lovely, meaning I didn’t look at it and think where are the stems?, lol.
Thanks for posting this with all the details,
Shirl
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I have to disagree with you about the flowers needing stems. I thought of a trio of flowers floating in a bowl with the leaves spread out around the blooms & a soft blue sky behind the container. I think your painting is lovely, just as it is! Thanks for taking time to do the pictures and write up. It is so helpful. Wonderful card and wonderful technique. I love it! TFS & Hugs
I think the card looks terrific with the beautifully painted flowers and leaves taking upfront staging! No stems needed but then again, what do I know? Hee. Your instructions are appreciated. 🙂
Hi Heather! I think they are perfect Sunflowers. I would have never noticed that there were no stems. I’m sure a camera perspective, up close and personal with these Sunflowers, would have been just the same. And you have portrayed them perfectly. I love sunflowers in the garden, they are so tall and beautiful on a clear and bright day. I love your card art and I’m always amazed at how you get these scrumptious results with some stamping. LOL You are brilliant, you know….
Beautiful, the stems are behind the flowers and leaves. You are judging yourself too harshly because to me this is a beautiful summer day, thank you for sharing Karen x
Beautiful flowers, no need for stems
Oh, that’s just beautiful, Heather. It’s interesting to see your technique. You came out with such a perfect border, and I love the sentiment which is so perfect with the sunflowers.
One would be hard-pressed to know you’d started by stamping these flowers and didn’t just paint them. Who needs stems anyway? 😉
Wow this looks amazing…you are very talented! What sort of tape do you use to tape your card down?
Hi Vikki,
Thanks for your kind comment. I use painter’s tape to tape the card down. You still need to peel it off slowly but it doesn’t usually tear like masking tape would.
This is beautiful, Heather! Thank you for the tutorial! I believe the stems are hiding behind the leaves! I love the layout and wouldn’t change a thing!
Wow! Gorgeous sunflowers, thank you so much for this step by step photo tutorial, I love your work Heather & learn so much from your posts! I just started to go back on your blog & go through all your older posts & pin to my Pinterest watercolor boards. Please do more step by steps or more videos, your work is amazing! Thanks again 🙂