Drawing and Painting: Crafty Buddies

Do you remember awhile ago how I made the Crafty Buddy embroidery set? And the little freebie thimble guy? Well, I’ve had a lot of fun playing around in the studio lately and wanted to show you what I’ve been up to. I have to say, that I really wouldn’t have played around with the Crafty Buddy illustrations without the pretty sweet samples from JetPens and DecoArt. I’m not sure if you have ever heard of either of these companies. I actually hadn’t until they emailed me asking me if I wanted a to try out their products, but I’ve really grown to like them. Not only is their staff really nice, but their products are of great quality.

DecoArt sent me a sample pack of their artist acrylic paints. I was impressed that they actually included matte medium in the set. The colors are nice and opaque, which can be a huge issue with paints, and go on pretty smooth. They really have a nice flow. DecoArt paints is going to do a giveaway for Craft Leftovers readers towards the end of the month. Well heck, I just think that’s pretty freaking sweet of them. I’ll tell you more about their paints next week.

I made a copy of the embroidery pattern on some nice recycled paper and the painted it in with the DecoArt paints. Once it dried (about 5 minutes), I inked over it with the brush pen and the white ink pen. The brush pen is really neat because it has a cartridge in it like a calligraphy pen and the ink actually flows into a brush. But it’s not a foam brush tip like some “brush” pens. It’s an actual freaking brush! I love it! They also sent a super fine tip pen, the white ink pen, felt tip drawing pen, and another fine tip pen–which is now a permanent resident of my sketchbook and not pictured here.

{this is the brush pen I was rambling about above}

Jet Pens has a pretty neat mission. They are a small company based out of California that feels really strongly about providing high quality drawing and writing tools. Plus, they have some really fun stationery items, like this sushi eraser. (It totally made my hungry when I first opened my package. Within the hour, I proceeded to go get sushi. Haha.) They import a ton of great Japanese pens that aren’t readily available elsewhere in the US. They talk about “pen addicts” on their about page. While I could have been that category before, now they have me hooked on these amazing Japanese pens! Which is good and bad at the same time. Their evil plot to convert me into a long time customer worked. :) Well done, JetPens. Well done.

It’s kind of interesting how there are some consumables I just can’t get away from–paint and writing/drawing tools are the two big ones. So when I do buy them, I go for quality. I tend to buy in bulk on paints instead of small tubes. On handwriting supplies, you can be a little less disposable too. I use pens that have an ink cartridge that you can replace or even refill instead of chucking the whole pen each time. Also there’s pens with nibs and a jar of ink–hands down my favorite drawing tool. And happily, JetPens carries a great selection of just these types. I can’t wait to get my first order of pencils from them. I so need a mechanical pencil.

And one last note. I’m going to make a few more of these little illustrations of the Crafty Buddies this week. It’s so much fun! When I finish them, I’m going to mat and frame them then add them to the shop–most likely around the first of the year. I’m excited about it. Since they started with a digital print and I painted over, they will be more affordable than a straight up original and a little more than a straight up print. I’m hoping to make it a regular thing too. Just think how cute the Crafty Buddy illustrations would look in your studio. :)

Have a great night and happy crafting!
Kristin