Pathetic drawing skills

When Julie saw the dried penguin she made yesterday, she opened up the folded paper and squeeled excited: 'Mommy, a book!'
But when I asked her what was inside she said: 'nothing, Mommy'.
I told her that the Penguin on the cover looked dirty.
She looked at me like 'You don't like my penguin?'

I said: 'Yes, but I think he played in mud all day.
Let's put him in bath.
She got all excited while I was drawing a bath tub.
I asked her: 'what does the penguin do after his bath?'.
'Watch television, Mommy?'
So I drew a couch and a television.

The next page was full of stains from her previous painting so I told her that the penguin didn't like to watch TV and preferred playing in the mud.
She giggled when I was drawing the penguin in the mud.
Then her good best friend longneck (giraffe) ended up on the page too and she smiled from ear to ear.
After playing in the mud they had to have dinner together.

 And penguin wasn't tired at all since he wanted to jump on the bed before going to sleep.

My drawing skills are pathetic but Julie doesn't mind at all.
She loved making this book together and couldn't stop reading it since she knew exactly what was going on on the pages.
Now I'll go make her color her book...

How to do plaster carving?

I love sharing things that I love doing myself, so I made another how-to.
This time about plaster carving. It's such a simple way to reach wonderful results. It's especially a very fun activity to do with kids.

Here is what you need: wine corks, nails, a piece of plaster, a piece of tracing paper, a pencil, a nice drawing and if you have 'em, all kinds of cutting tools like lino cutters, knife,...
I'm terrible at drawing, honestly, if I would draw a pig, you probably would think it's a monkey.
So, I often use other people's art to help making what I want. This time I'm using AnnaRubyKing's printable colour in pages. I chose to trace the branch with a pencil onto tracing paper.
Then I turn around the tracing paper and I rub with a pencil the drawing onto the piece of plaster.
This is the result:
There are several tools that you can buy especially for plaster carving but if you are only going to do this once in a while, why don't make your own tools?
You need some nails, wine corks and a hard surface for this. Put the nail with the sharp side into the cork and press firmly. Now you have a hole.
Then take out the nail and press the head of the nail into the hole. This is a bit hard but if you press it onto the hard surface it's easier. Now you have a handy grip to carve into the plaster.
It's much safer too if you work with children. You can also put a needle into it, this makes very fine lines.
These are some of the tools I use. The branch like tools are handmade too from nails and hazelnutbranches. They are very handy but a bit more tricky to make.
Outline the lines of the drawing with a sharp knif or needle. You will have to blow lightly to remove the excess plaster so you can still see your drawing.
Then create some depth into the plaster. I used a lino cutter to do this.
OK, my branch looks slighty different then Anna's drawing but I like it!
With a pencil, I added some lines into the plaster and with a handmade cork-tool, I'm going to carve the lines slightly deeper into the plaster.
Then I'm going to press a piece of clay into the carved plaster and see if I'm satisfied with what I just made.
I take the clay away...
Jip, I like it! If not, you do some more carving and repeat these last two steps.
I tear away the sides to get rough edges and make a hole into the pendant with the lino cutter.
Tada! Let it dry and fire it in the kiln. If you don't have a kiln, you can do this also with polymer clay, papier mache or air drying paperclay.
Have fun carving your own plaster!