Art Tools

Handy Tools for Artists

All artists have favorite tools and methods for their use.  They use tools to achieve the looks they want and have proven over time and through diligence that these tools work.  But what if you are a budding artist and don’t know what tools are available?  Or perhaps you have used the same tools forever and are looking for something to add to your paint box and your skill level.  This just might make a difference in success or mega success, so consider the following:

Chamois scraps are not used by all pastel and charcoal artists but perhaps they should be.  These small natural skins contain the remains of organic oils and a “furry” surface that lifts powdery media with ease.  Chamois do not release the powder they pick up until they are shaken, so there is less likelihood of smudges or smears if careful pickup of unwanted pastel or charcoal is undertaken.  Chamois can also be invaluable when cleaning dirty pastel sticks and shards.  When you want an instantly clean stick, just massage it with a scrap of chamois.  This will also work wonders to clean a work area without moisture.  Just run the chamois over the work surface and all the dust adheres to the skin.

Color shapers are brush handles with soft rubber chisel tips, available in a good variety of shapes and widths.  They move color – wet acrylics and watercolor - especially well, and they are easily cleaned with a damp cloth immediately after use.  Long-lived and flexible, color shapers are very useful in gouging through new paint to reveal the underlying surface tone.

A mahlstick can be made of metal, wood or even plastic, but throughout history painters have used a stick to support a hand so that they might work over wet areas.  These handy tools give the painter a hand rest that does not disturb the painting already done.  The rounded end is placed against the edge of the stretched canvas or canvas panel or on a dry portion of the painting.  The opposite end (usually bulbed for easy grip) is held with a free hand so that the painter’s work hand can rest on the support.  Simple and straightforward and very useful!  In a pinch you can make your own with a smooth dowel or small tree branch.

Eyedroppers can be used to dispense almost any liquid art material from ink and paint to glue.  Keep one close by and you will soon discover many uses for this inexpensive, readily available liquid lifter/dispenser.

Common household paintbrushes offer a quick way to lay on massive amounts of paint, be it watercolor, acrylic or oil.  Use only new or very clean brushes to insure there is no contamination.  Bristle brushes give a great even application when layering gesso.  They are sturdy and long-lived if cleaned well after each use.  Synthetic bristles are strong and can be a good way to apply very large areas of even tones in watercolor or acrylic. 

Large house painting brushes have another practical application in art.  If you find yourself stuck in a rut of picky detail, do a painting using a very large paintbrush.  You simply cannot accomplish small detail with a huge brush so you automatically loosen up and get free!  Fun is to repaint an image where you originally used small brushes, but paint the new work with house painting sizes.  You may be amazed at the relaxing and re-energizing result.

Sponges are the wonder tool of the water media painter!  Paint removal, paint application, textural additions, topical speckling, and washes:  You name it; a sponge is up to the task.  Natural sea sponges or synthetic, they both work wonders for light texturing, faux finishes, general texturing of natural items such as tree leaves or trunks, etc.

Some art tools don’t look like art tools.  Chopsticks can be used as calipers to hold down stencils when airbrushing; and they can be used as texturing tools or scribers when working in wet acrylic or watercolor. 

Plastic wrap can be used to slow the drying of acrylic paints on your palette.  Just put a layer over the dabs of color.  When you remove the plastic, wad it up with the paint to the outside and roll the resulting pigment crackles onto blotter paper or cardstock to create the beginning of neat note cards or monotype prints.

Safety razor blades can be used to scrape paint from paper or make small corrections on pencil or ink drawings.  Care must be used to take only the top layer of paper so that the correction will not be noticed.  If you scrape the blade sideways across the drawing rather than gouge the ink or paint away, the surface damage is minor.

Copyright ARTtalk Vol. 18 No. 2 — December 2007