Dog Walk–Stampscapes Scene

I love using stamps to create a scene – I just to drift away into an imaginary world.

Materials Used

• Coated glossy Clarity card (Claritystamps) and scrap copy paper for masking.
• Dark brown and black archival dye based ink for stamping (Marvey Matchables).
• Mixed Distress inks (Ranger) and watercolour pens for colouring (browns, greens and blues).
• Make up sponges for applying colour.
• White gel pen for adding highlights (Uni-ball Signo).
• Dark brown fine pointed ink pen for adding extra details (alcohol ink Artist Sketching Pen – Kuretake).
• Brayer (Speedball) and ink blending mat (SplodgeAway).
• Glass mat (or your preferred stamping surface).

Stamps Used

• Background Trees – Central tree (Creative Expressions – More Trees), Tree on right (All Night Media – old wooden block). These could easily be substituted with other tree stamps.
• Foreground Foliage – Ferns (unknown brand), Grasses and wild flowers (Creative Expressions – Meadow Flora). Again any foreground foliage could be substituted.
• Tree Foliage – from Elusive Images Tall Trees set (now Chocolate Baroque).
• Scene Building Stamps – All from Stampscapes: Large mid ground trees (Tree Trunk Trio, Birch Trees and Tree Trunk), Rocks (Rocks Duo Small, Rock 1, Rock 2, 3 Rocks and Grass, Rocks and Grass Large), Pebbles (Pebbles), Fencing (Fence, Old Fence), Dog Walker (Dog Walk), Flying Birds (Gulls), Sedges and grasses (Sedge Filler, Tall Grass Small, Tall Grass, Grass Texture).
• Additional pebbles stamp (old block from Art Impressions) and grass sprigs (unknown brand old stamp) – these are not essential so use what you have.

Creating the Scene

1. First stamped onto copy paper, roughly cut out and arranged them to plan out the design.
2. Carefully cut around the larger mid ground trees (Stampscapes) to use as a mask.
3. Used the brown archival ink for stamping and building the scene. This is permanent when dry and is not affected by over painting with water based media (and does not bleed with alcohol ink like solvent based pigment inks).
4. First stamped the large trunk on the left, covered with a mask and stamped the trio of trunks (so that they appeared behind the larger trunk).
5. Next stamped the the birch trees. Covered the image with scrap paper and stamped again to extend the trees to the top of the page. Touched up the join using the brown marker where needed.
6. Masked all the trees and stamped the background trees.
7. Made a circle mask for the moon. Brayered the sky area with blue distress ink. Lifted out a little ink with damp tissue to create clouds.
8. Stamped some foliage onto the birch trees, the fencing, and the distant grasses etc. so that they appear behind the main trees.
9. Removed all the masks, stamped the dog walker, birds and more tree foliage.
10. Continued stamping the path, rocks and grasses. Using the larger elements and rocks towards the front, and smaller further back to create distance. Note – the Stampscapes grasses and sedges work in a clever way – just layer them up and they blend together to create textures of the rocks and grasses. No tricky masking needed.
11. Stamped the bottom edge with large silhouette grasses and ferns using black ink.
12. Coloured the image with water based inks and watercolour pens. The inks need to be applied sparingly to the shiny coated card as it is not designed to take a lot of water. I put colour onto the blending mat and picked up onto make up sponges and applied in thin layers with gentle blending. I used bluer greens towards the back and more vibrant yellow greens in the foreground to create depth.
13. Finally touched up the foreground foliage using watercolour pens directly. Then added additional highlights throughout the image where needed using the white gel pen e.g. highlights on the tree branches and rocks where they catch the light.