Toothbrushes: good for tough scrtchy marks, dry brush effect when dragged as in the textured arch with an interesting build up of yellow ochre paint over the dark blue. Thick broken textured area built up with lemon yellow, cadnium red, ultramarine and crimson on upper portion with dense paint.
Cards and palette knives: with their smooth edge it was easy tobuild up ridges. I began on one edge and dragging the knife, moving it back and foth like a windscreeen wiper - gives the appearance of motion. Wher e the paint dries out towards the end of stroke it has the same effect, especially with angles or curves.
COLOUR EFFECTS: When one colour is used over another in still wet paint they do not blend together much. This is more difficult to avoid if doing the same with a brush. Interesting two tone, even multi tonal effects materialise when two or more colours are used at once on a knife of card.
Side edge of card or palette knife produces accurate straight lines when dragged or dabbed over one another.
Stencil brush: ideal for rough circles. I can see the potential for water ie. waves, ripples and weather effectss ie. wind and rain. Also pebbles and bumpay surfaces.
Although I'm more used to using brushes - albeit marginally - I would like to make use of these tools much more for oil painting or indeed acrylics. They seem to be more fun and certainly easier to clean than brushes used for oil paint, which is fantastic news! I'm now seriously thinking of reserving most of my brushes for acrylics, or water mixable oils, when I build up my collection further that is..we'll see..
Next was the turn of the sponges - literally, as they were rollers. Used thin and medium paint I twisted the rollers in circles and layer the paint with one band rolled over another while the under layer was still wet. Less blending again here than would be the case with brushes.
Kitchen sponges: their versatility surprised me. Stamping the scourer side, quickly dabbing, twisting and lifting, gave a textured grainy look. Using concave wedges in the same way I obtained a solid circle surrounded by an open circle.When dragged along - sleek and smooth parallel lines or a wave like effect. Easily makes fascinating finely textured spiraled circles. When it was pulled through a wet under layer in the opposite direction gave the look of a moving image ie. camera blur.
I'ms sure it would be as easy to obtain some effect with a brush, but it was certainly easier for me to make spirals and circles than with brushes. I can see how with sponges, layers depth could quickly be built up.
Cardboard - corrugated card edge dragged - simultaneously produce multiple parallel lines either dabbed or dragged.
The ripped edge of a piece of mountboard produced interesting irregular lines. These would be very appropriate for expressive landscapes.
Fingers/rags: Using just the finger or wearing surgical glove - dabs of red with fingertips - I can detect faces in them and also reminiscent of roses. Also dragged blue and purple medium, then thin paint horizontally and flicked upwards - like grass or surf. In centre - with rag - thick to dry paint, blended lines into one solid mass of red blended with yellow towards edge to form orange in middle. Burnt Umber added on left, thick linear ridges of yellow over, Circles of Cerulean Blue thick to thin. Scrunched rag - thined paint, dabbed on ceruleum, crimson puched and blended a bit into the blue then u/marine. Wiped thinned u/marine over area to upper right over streacks of red and blue - which were dry. Was pleased with effect of vivid blue background. Also worth bearing in mind that this modifies the red - handy if desired. Think it was a fortunate accident . If had used earth colour, whit or black the same effect would have occured...................
Using finger without glove, circles smoother and more controllable ie. pounced on and twirly twists. Painting with fingers, or even wearing thin glove, felt calming and quite therapeutic.
Paper: scrunched tissue paper dabbed on and dragged dry - on left. finger of yellow paint dabbed over. Thick paint in red, blue and yellow spread with paper and finger. Yellow dabbed in concentric circles - lower left.
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