What goes into painting a pet portrait? I thought it would be fun to show you a bit of the process. I painted this sweet pup for my dear cousin the day before the St. Louis Blues won the Stanley cup. I like to think it’s a piece full of a lot of luck! I started out with a biege background to give Canon a good basecoat. Then I sketched her outline from a photograph. I love how Canon is sticking out her tongue…such a happy pup. After sketching, I started layering paint onto the canvas. I didn’t quite have a plan, but I intentionally worked all over the canvas in one sitting. Acrylic paint dries quickly, and since the canvas was smaller I was able to manage this. After the painting felt done, I added the white background which helped Canon stand out more. I hope you enjoy these start-to-finish photos. I have similar photos of my pen and ink homes too. Hoping to post them soon!

I just recently started painting. Drawing is my jam, but I am falling in love with how it feels to spread paint over canvas. The colors are vibrant, and the painting taking on a life of its own as more and more layers are added. More paintings are in the works for Kate Elise Art! Is there anything you recently started learning? It’s never too late to learn a knew skill. You can do it too!

My kids like art. We have a room in the house dedicated to art with a cabinet full of supplies. My kiddos have access to these supplies at all times (except glitter…that is kept in a secret spot…shhh) unless we have a huge group of kids over. This art space has terrified guests before. I totally get it. What crazy person would let their kids have access to paint, playdough, markers, glue and bingo dobbers? Me. I’m that crazy person. If my kids make an art mess, it puts a smile on my face instead of a look of horror. The clean up is work, but worth it in our family. I will write a post about our art cabinet and ways to set up an art space in your home sometime in the future. Today’s post will be about how to clean stamps…cause I am feeling boring like that today. This past week my two year old son was really into stamps. We haven’t had the stamps out for over a year. (My daughter has been drawing, drawing, & drawing instead.) Needless to say, our poor stamps were coated in old washable ink. Looked like a stamp massacre occurred...multiple times. My son didn’t mind, but I was determined to clean them. If you have kid stamps at home, this is an easy, quick way to clean them that has worked for us. It took a total of 10 minutes. I do not recommend using this method on stamps that are important to you, expensive, etc. since it could scratch them.

What you need: kid stamps that barely survived the washable ink battle, cup of warm water, dish soap, old toothbrush you don’t mind staining or throwing away

What you do: In a sink, mix together the warm water and a couple squirts of dish soap in a cup or recycled yogurt container. (If you currently don’t keep old yogurt containers, you should. They can be used for many art related things. But that’s for another post. Moving on.) Grab a stamp and wet it with warm water. Take your toothbrush, dip it in the soap/water solution and scrub the stamp clean. Rinse off the stamp, set it on a paper towel to dry and repeat the process with all other stamps. I only use this method with washable ink, so I am not sure how well it would hold up against other inks.

This would be a good activity for your kiddos to take part in. I bet they would have a blast getting to use a toothbrush for something other than brushing their teeth. It would also teach them responsibility in taking care of their art supplies…plus soapy water is alot easier to clean up than paint.

Hope this helps at least one caregiver (or stamp lover) out there. Happy stamping!