Crafty

Hello, my name is Brian and before I begin I’d live to introduce myself and give a background to my situation.  In the summer of 2014, I went over the handlebars of a mountain bike breaking my neck, to be specific I broke the 4th cervical vertebrae damaging my spinal cord. Everything from shoulders down is affected movement and sensation wise, I had regained a lot post injury.  I am able to feel and move every part of my body but to varying extents. I am able to walk however, I do use a walker anywhere outside of my house. The ability to move as much as I can has given me a lot of my independence back. My dexterity is greatly impacted making task that involve good hands far more challenging and extremely test one’s patients.  Crafts can require good dexterity and patients, a lack of dexterity can be overcome by being very careful and taking ones time.  However this skill of really taking ones time just comes with time having to adjust to no longer having fully functional hands as before.

Over the quarantine I was looking at a Sponge Bob feed on a social media platform and I saw rocks painted with a Sponge Bob theme. Yes, I said rocks painted.  As in a person went outside found rocks on the ground and decided to paint them as a craft to pass the time. Painting rocks is nothing new and is a large hobby in the crafting community for many people. Acrylic paint is the most commonly used paint for this hobby.  Supplies needed are rocks, paint and brushes, along with an idea to paint.  Go outside find rocks that will work for your idea and clean any dirt or anything else off of them before painting.  I had decided to paint Sponge Bob and Patrick, I used a brick for Sponge Bob and I found a triangular rock for Patrick.  I washed the rocks off in a bucket of water and set them out in the sun to dry.  Once they were completely dry I painted the base coat of yellow and pink, I did this for 3 or 4 layers pretty much until I could not see the rock through the paint.  Make sure the paint is dry before applying new layers.   I then proceeded to sketch the faces on to the rocks using a pencil, with this part just be loose with the sketching do not force it to be perfect, do not be afraid to make a mistake, if you do not like something just erase the pencil mark and resketch it. After the sketch was completed, I began painting their faces.  From beginning to end this can be done in about a day, however I was in no rush and took about 4 days at a very leisured pace.