When I want to put myself back to sleep, I usually turn on a You Tube video by some of my favorite gel printers, professionally produced and edited with good lighting, premium supplies, and stunning prints.
This morning I stumbled upon an entirely different kind of pleasure--a country woman I would guess to be from Kentucky or Tennessee--who because she "can't afford fancy stuff" makes her own stencils and stamps.
"Just go over to Wal-Mart and ask the man if he can give you some clean meat trays to make art out of," she says. "And go get a little girl's lace dress from the thrift shop and cut the lace up. I got these dresses for a dollar fifty." ("I'm not into short sleeveless lacy dresses myself, I just get them to make art out of.")
"I get me some foam pieces at Wal-Mart and cut them into all these shapes and glue them on cardboard," she says--showing her beautiful homemade stamps.
I am tempted to tell her that, according to the experts, she's using about three times the amount of paint she needs, but I can't bear to diminish her obvious joy with a well-intentioned suggestion. I admire her improvisation. She doesn't let her lack of "fancy stuff" keep her from making original and inventive textures.
Her prints would be amazing if she'd cut way back on the paint. She squirts copious amounts of paint (from Wal-Mart) onto her gel plate and her beautiful homemade stamps slide around and create squishy and uninteresting prints. But I find myself totally engaged for 39 minutes.
As one viewer wrote in the comments section: These were amazing ideas! Best 39 minutes to watch...ingenuity at its finest.
She's having so much fun! At the end, she tells us all to "have a bless-ed day and come back tomorrow for the lace show I'm going to make for y'all."
I'll be there.
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