Watercolor Fruit Postage Stamps Tutorial

July 1 is National Postage Stamp Day, and since it’s the summertime, I thought it would be a great idea to paint some fruit postage stamps! Enjoy this easy tutorial!

Supplies:

Paint: LUKAS Aquarell 1862 Watercolor
Brush(es): Creative Mark’s Mimik Synthetic, round size 3 and 1
Paper: Canson XL Watercolor Paper (8″x8″)
Jars of water
Pencil
Paper towel or cotton rag
All of my favorite supplies here

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Sketch stamps

Use your pencil to sketch a set of four stamps. They can be horizontal, vertical, square, even a circle (although I didn’t do a circle).

Once you’ve got the general shapes, draw squiggly lines for the stamp edges.

Throughout this tutorial, keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be perfect! If it’s a little off, it’ll actually add to the quirkiness and give your painting character. After all, this is HANDMADE. Shouldn’t it have evidence that it’s handmade?

Choose your four fruits

I decided to go with a primary color scheme so I chose lemons, blueberries, strawberries, and apples. You can choose whatever fruits you want, of course! Or do something other than fruits. You can do flowers, animals, sea creatures, etc.

I’m using a round size 3 brush for most of these illustrations because the stamps are fairly small.

Add shadows and depth

I added a slight shadow to each of the fruits for a touch of realism. When adding shadows, remember to use the complementary color of the subject. So for the lemons, I used a light purple color. Using a black color that’s watered down could work too. But the complementary shadow color will make the subject pop out more.

Outline and add details

Now I’ve switched to my round size 1 brush and used a Payne’s gray color to outline the stamps’ squiggly lines. Again, remember that it doesn’t have to be perfect. Maybe some lines are thicker than others. Maybe one squiggle is wider than another. Roll with it. Turn your paper around as necessary to make it easier to create the squiggly lines.

Finally, add some stamp values. I used smaller values like 10 cents, 5 cents, and 4 cents. And for the apple stamp, I ran out of room. So I just added “USA” to it.