As my summer comes to a close I am looking to do a little creative exploration. Ok, my goal is to always have a little summer carefree day every day.

Supplies

• wood stamps
• paper towel
• acrylic paint (tempera, watercolor, or gouache are options too)
• watercolor paper
• big flat brush like 1 inch size
• a small brush to apply paint to the stamps
• copy paper for testing your stamps before you paint with them

Apply Paint to the Stamps and Stamp

Apply a little water to your paint. This will help the paint easily spread on the stamps. Try stamping with the paint as is? You might like the texture. Use your sheet of copy paper to explore. As you stamp you will notice that one application of paint on your stamp will go a long way. You can stamp four or five times. Each time the stamp pattern will get lighter but you will get a lovely texture.

Stamp your paper with a dark color. I used magenta.

Please make sure to clean your stamps after you finish stamping. I do this by painting water on the stamp and then rubbing the stamp with a paper towel.

Paint Over the Stamps

When you paint over the stamps make sure you use a color that is a lighter version of your color. For example, I used magenta to stamp the pattern on the right. Then I used a little yellow and white to create peach and pink colors. With the texture on the green texture on the left, I stamped with yellow and neutral orange. Then I painted over the pattern with green and blue.

Time to Draw and Get Painting!

Final Takeaways

Working on both these paintings at the same time was interesting. It certainly helped me think less and do more. The idea is to explore and push yourself to try different ideas. It’s always a surprise to see what you end up with. I have a couple more ideas with stamps.