a little tutorial and some sketches

I'm still catching up with paperwork and e-mails, so I still didn't get as much art done as I would've liked. But .... I bought some canvases, I bought a new artjournal, and I bought some basic paints. And, oh yes, some gesso and medium too. And grabbed a bunch of magazines from my mother's table last weekend ;-)  So I'm ready to get going next week, or maybe even this weekend already :-)

I managed to finish 2 sketches this week though:

This last one is a sketch I had already started in my sketchbook, and I decided to finish it for a dear friend of mine, who lost her son 5 years ago this week. Art does not take away the pain, but it can soothe and heal. Art has helped me so much when my sister died last year, and it still does. I remember finding a beautiful picture of an artwork online when I returned to Australia after the funeral, it really resonated with me and with the pain I was feeling. I just hope my drawing helped my friend a little bit in the same way ...

To make up for the lack of paintings, I decided to show you an easy way to make some cheap stamps. I started making these a few years ago already, and made some more in the last weeks in Australia. Took some pictures, but didn't have the time to write a blogpost about it. Here are some results:

These are not for fine details, but they are perfect to use in a background.

So how to make them? You can use all kinds of foam for this, but the results can differ depending on how thick and firm the foam is. Just experiment a bit with it. I have used those knee pads they sell for working in the garden, also foam that was in toys for kids, and here I mostly used kids' floor mats, like these:

In these the back has a pattern in it, but you can also find foam that is smooth on both sides, and then you can burn a pattern in both sides.

I used a woodburner to do this. When I wanted to start, I didn't want to spend too much money, so I called 5 different stores for the prices and got 5 (very) different prices. I went and bought the cheapest, which was about 12 euro's, and had 6 different tips that I could use:

And I've been so happy with it! The only thing you need to take care of is that you either work outside or in a very ventilated room, and that you wear a mask, since the smell is really not that nice and I'm guessing not very healthy either. But once you get past this and protect yourself enough, it is so much fun! It goes really fast, before you know it you have a whole bunch of them and can start using them. Here's another example:

Take care that you don't hold the point too long in one place, because it burns really quick. Start with the finest tip, and when you get a feel for it you can experiment with the bigger ones. And it gets really hot too, so don't touch the tip before it's completely cooled off.

Hope you'll have fun trying this out! I'm linking this as always to Paint Party Friday. Take a look over there at all the participating artists. It's worth it!

Here's my funny for this week :-)

And no, it's not my cat ;-)

Oh yes, almost forgot: remember I asked you last time whether you prefer using word verification or registered users to be able to comment? From your answers it was very clear that word verification is not very popular, and that most people prefer to comment as registered users. So I'll leave it like it was. Thanks so much for commenting!

Hope you're enjoying your day, and that your weekend will be beautiful! See you next week! ♥ ♥ ♥