When I go on fishing trips, mountain hikes, a walk in a park, or sometimes just sitting in my back yard, I always have a camera with me.
It doesn't have to be expensive, but a digital one is the most convenient for obvious reasons.
I snap pictures of different elements of nature.
Perhaps the way a shadow forms along the edge of the water, the way the ripples in the lake flow as the paddle slices through, the cloud patterns in the sky, the colors, rock formations, animals, and so on.
I save these pictures and use them as a guide or reference later on.
You need to pay attention to detail when drafting a hand stamped design.
For instance, you don't want to stamp leaves on a tree in a snow covered meadow, palm trees in the Adirondacks, dolphins in a fresh water lake, and so on.
The closer you can stay true to nature, the more depth you hand stamped design will possess.
You may meed to pay attention to what things look like when the wind blows, how the snow drifts, where the moss grows on trees and rocks, and how water flows around rocks and logs.
Nature is full of patterns and dimension and the more accurate ones you can incorporate in your hand stamped design, the higher quality your project will emanate.
Another very important element of nature to pay close attention to is color.
When you really look at things you soon realize that an array of color is apparent in each element.
Water, for example, has many shades of blues, greens, browns, purples, and depending on the setting of your scene, it could also have yellows and golds.
The colors also change the farther away you are, in the shallows, when there are trees on the shore, whether the sun is out, storms, and many other circumstances.
Leaves are not just green.
They are a lime green, yellow, Forrest green, and a touch of brown in the Spring and in the summer, green, dark green, olive, and hint of brown, in the fall there is a plethora of color, reds, golds, rusts, browns and oranges, and in the winter the trees are bare with a dead brown leaf or two hanging on their dormant limbs.
It is important to be as accurate as you can when designing a hand stamped project.
Mother Nature will provide you with all the tools you will need, it's up to you to put the lesson to good use.
A few more elements that I monitor are animals, plant species, and regional elements.
If I am stamping a January snow scene, it helps to know that deer in the Adirondacks lose their antlers by mid December but in another region they may loose them later.
I don't want to stamp skunks in a snow scene unless it is a humorous one as skunks hibernate and don't reappear until Spring.
Snowshoe rabbits here are only white in the Winter months and they are a brown the rest of the year.
Native plants also come into play.
Tropical plants, flowers, trees, and shrubs only belong in tropical climates.
I also pay attention to what leaf shapes are on what trees and the same goes for bark.
Maple leaves and oak leaves are very different and birch and beech trees are distinctive as well.
Sunflowers are a fall plant, The daisy is a summer plant, Lilacs are spring trees, and red twig is visible in the winter months.
I know it seems like a lot to take in.
After a while it will become natural to you and you will find a deeper appreciation for the things Mother Nature throws your way.
If you do your research and just become more alert to natural elements, your hand stamped designs will look authentic, professional, and could be mistaken for a photograph.
There is inspiration all around you.
Take it in, ponder it, and put it to work for you.