5. Capybara poo At number 5 is capybara poo. Cabybaras are the largest rodents in the world and super cute. They are related to guinea pigs but much much larger. Capybaras are native to South America and live a semi-aquatic lifestyle. They are herbivores meaning they...
My Art Journey
I started drawing in 2019 as a mindful activity to reduce stress. I followed a Kingfisher tutorial and got completely hooked. I had no idea about all the equipment required for professional drawings, special professional grade (and expensive) pencils, the right paper,...
Old Blue|The Saviour of her Species
Old Blue was now 9 years of age, old for a species that has an average life span of 4 years. Shortly after being transferred to Managere island one of Blue and Yellows’ nests was destroyed in a storm. The robins built a replacement nest and Blue laid two more eggs....
How the Black Robin became the rarest bird in the world
Black robins are native to a group of islands off the East coast of New Zealand called the Chatham Islands. The islands were originally called Rekohu (“Misty Sun”) by the Moriori people. For thousands of years the black robins flourished on the forested Islands. There...
What do Antennae do?
Antennae, we’ve seen them on insects but what do they actually do? It turns out they are a pretty amazing piece of anatomy. They connect into the brain and have the ability to augment senses like navigation, orientation, smell and even taste!What are Antennae? In the...
Natural History Illustration 101: Drawing a hare
What is rendering? The final week of the Natural History Illustration course involved rendering an animal of our choice. Rendering is the process of adding the fine details of colour, fur, feathers and shading. For this course we were only allowed to use graphite,...
Natural History Illustration 101: Drawing Animals
I recently completed a fantastic course, Drawing Nature, Science and Culture: Natural History 101. It’s an online course run by the University of Newcastle in Australia on the edX platform and is aimed at artists who want to improve their observational skills in order...
What is a Tizzie-Whizie?
Have you heard of the Tizzie-Whizie? The tizzie-whizie is a very rare creature found only in Bowness Bay, Lake Windemere in the UK. It is described as having the body of a hedgehog, the tail of a squirrel or fox, insect-like wings and antennae. It was first discovered...
How to make a heated drawing board
Why use a heated drawing board?
For coloured pencil artists, a heated drawing board melts the pencils making it quicker to layer on surfaces like pastelmat and makes pencils easier to blend. It works brilliantly with neopastels on drafting film for smoothing and blending. It can also be great for people with joint problems in their hands who find the heat helps relieve pain allowing them to draw for longer.
Why build your own?
The only commercially available heated drawing board is the Icarus board made in the United States. It is an expensive product with the cheapest board, containing a 6” x 9“ heated area, retailing at $319 plus shipping. You can expect to at least double that price to get a board shipped to the UK. You would also need to buy a voltage transformer to convert to your countries power supply.
DIY heated drawing board instructions
Materials
- Sheet of Perspex/acrylic (I used a 120 x60 x 0.2 cm sheet cut to size)
- Saw (I used a Tenon saw)
- Stanley knife for scoring
- Metal ruler
- Heated Pad with thermostat
Heated Pad and Thermostat
The Icarus board goes from 100 – 120 oF, which is around 38 – 49 oC so you need to find a heated pad that can heat to around this range. You will also need a thermostat so that you can control the temperature. Heated pads are sold for seedlings, reptiles, pets and even people. I found that the pet heated pads tended to be quite bulky and had fixed temperature settings. The reptile and seedling pads were more suitable, I found the seedling mats were slightly larger.
I bought the “RIOGOO 24x52cm Seedling Heat Mat and Thermostat Controller 20-42°C” from Amazon priced at £29.99.
The thermostat has an easy to use electronic display where you can set the temperature you want to heat to. The thermostat also comes with a probe that is used to measure the temperature of the soil. It has a sucker that you can stick to the under surface of the Perspex drawing surface so that you can allow the thermostat to measure the temperature of the pad. This is important so that the thermostat knows when to stop heating.
Heat-resistant drawing surface
For the drawing surface I used a sheet of Perspex that I cut to 60 x 42 cm. To make the drawing surface place the Perspex sheet onto a protective surface. I used a piece of MDF on my dining table. Measure 42 cm from the end and make a small mark so you know where to cut. Hold the metal ruler in place and score a straight line along the Perspex sheet. Score over the line multiple times so you have a good deep grove for your saw to sit in. I scored about 10 -15 times. Using the tenon saw, cut along the scored line. You will need to have something or someone available to balance both sides of the Perspex sheet.
Remember to remove the protective covering from BOTH sides of the Perspex before you use it because it will melt.
The final setup
I placed the heated pad on my wooden drawing board. I then placed the Perspex sheet over the top attaching the probe to the underside and making sure that it was in contact with the heated pad. For my test I set the thermostat to 38 oC. I placed a sheet of drafting film on the Perspex and used neopastels to create a test background. The pad heated up quickly, within a couple of minutes my drawing board was warm enough to melt the neopastels. It made blending and smoothing a dream.
And voilà! A heated drawing board at a fraction of the cost. Happy Heated drawing everyone .
My Top 5 Interesting Animal Poos
5. Capybara poo At number 5 is capybara poo. Cabybaras are the largest rodents in the world and super cute. They are related to guinea pigs but much much larger. Capybaras are native to South America and live a semi-aquatic lifestyle. They are herbivores meaning they...
My Art Journey
I started drawing in 2019 as a mindful activity to reduce stress. I followed a Kingfisher tutorial and got completely hooked. I had no idea about all the equipment required for professional drawings, special professional grade (and expensive) pencils, the right paper,...
Old Blue|The Saviour of her Species
Old Blue was now 9 years of age, old for a species that has an average life span of 4 years. Shortly after being transferred to Managere island one of Blue and Yellows’ nests was destroyed in a storm. The robins built a replacement nest and Blue laid two more eggs....
How the Black Robin became the rarest bird in the world
Black robins are native to a group of islands off the East coast of New Zealand called the Chatham Islands. The islands were originally called Rekohu (“Misty Sun”) by the Moriori people. For thousands of years the black robins flourished on the forested Islands. There...
What do Antennae do?
Antennae, we’ve seen them on insects but what do they actually do? It turns out they are a pretty amazing piece of anatomy. They connect into the brain and have the ability to augment senses like navigation, orientation, smell and even taste!What are Antennae? In the...
Natural History Illustration 101: Drawing a hare
What is rendering? The final week of the Natural History Illustration course involved rendering an animal of our choice. Rendering is the process of adding the fine details of colour, fur, feathers and shading. For this course we were only allowed to use graphite,...
Natural History Illustration 101: Drawing Animals
I recently completed a fantastic course, Drawing Nature, Science and Culture: Natural History 101. It’s an online course run by the University of Newcastle in Australia on the edX platform and is aimed at artists who want to improve their observational skills in order...
What is a Tizzie-Whizie?
Have you heard of the Tizzie-Whizie? The tizzie-whizie is a very rare creature found only in Bowness Bay, Lake Windemere in the UK. It is described as having the body of a hedgehog, the tail of a squirrel or fox, insect-like wings and antennae. It was first discovered...