Visions of Country life watercolor style with Blue Knight Stamps

Country Life Stamps from Blue Knight Stamps

Bank Barn

SilhouetteGrazing Horse

Dirt Road stamp from Blue Knight Stamps

Silhouette Sailboat

I have always had a soft spot for country life, both sides of my family, and my husband's family have lived in Rural Iowa raising crops and animals on family-owned farms. Country life is always romanticized in my mind's eye. So when I saw Blue Knight Stamps had some really amazing country style stamps that would be perfect for me to watercolor, I was in love! I can't get enough of stamping and water coloring these stamps! BTW: my Grandmother-in-law Velma Christensentensen was born and raised on a family farm, before she passed away, she and her siblings were awards with a Century family owned a farm in western Iowa. It was really neat to witness my Father-in-law be there to accept that award on her behalf... it's a hard thing to have a family-owned farm for over 100 years!

Country Life Stamp from Blue Knight Stamps

Anyways... I love a good stamp I can watercolor.

First insight into this batch of cards I made:
Keep it Simple. When it comes to making art, I have to look at the card as a whole and think, what does this piece/card really need? Most often than not, it's the simple things that make the card speak to your heart. So I kept it fairly simple, I wanted the illustration/stamp to be the center stage, I wanted to color to magnify the stamp, not the other way around.

Then once I figured out a color scheme, and color combo, it was just taking the time to paint the cards, I painted most of them in an afternoon. It was a very peaceful and magical afternoon, I loved playing with colors, and lines.

Silhouette Grazing Horse from Blue Knight Stamps

Once the watercolor dried, Then I came back and examined what the card panel really needed. I used a die cut frame from Taylored Expressions to frame some of the stamped panels, and then went to my paper stash and added an extra layer to make the painting/panel pop. I didn't want to add too much, I wanted the stamp to be the focal point, almost as if the color was just there to enhance the card. Any extra thing I thought would distract from the stamped image.

Country Life Stamp

Each stamp was stamped with Archival ink in jet black ink with a MISTI, on mixed media paper from Strathmore. It's my new go-to substrate for stamping. I love it!
Here is a tutorial on how I painted the Country Life stamp

I hope to get you more tutorials on each card, so follow me on FaceBook of coming back to my blog to check out how I made each card.