My New Craft Essentials
Seeking out new methods and materials for art projects has been a life long endeavor for me. I can remember being in High School at the age when the quality of my work was reaching new heights and feeling a new surge of excitement every time I would discover a new technique or a new medium and I was always experimenting. However, as many people know, the experiments we do in our youth often have a low success rate as trial and error is often the only way an artist learns to expand their repertoire, and practice makes perfect!
Well friends, I certainly don’t confess to have any amount of expertise in the crafting world, or fine arts, but regardless, I still want to share some of my excitement over having had my eyes opened to some new methods and materials since being in design school.
Today my favorite thing is paint markers. There are just so many things you can decorate with paint markers from ceramics to mirrors. When I was in high school I used highlighters to decorate the ceiling of my room with stars so that I could turn on a black light and have them glow. I think back and realize paint markers would have been so much more effective, and acrylic would have sanded right off when my parents sold the house. You can also layer them on matte paper to create interesting mini murals or decorate the frames around photos in a whimsical way. Remember that when they’re wet still, depending on the surface, you can use a brush to blend them.
Another recent favorite of mine is chalkboard vinyl. When I moved into my apartment last year, there was this horribly obtrusive wood panelling in my living room, faux wood panelling I should add, and there was just no way I was going to live with that. My solution: chalkboard vinyl. I covered that thing, trimmed off the excess, which I used in my foyer for an inspirational quote board, and painted a mural in chalk. The best part is that you can use anything on it, chalk, chalk pens, paint pens, and just wipe it off. Also, with chalk and chalk pens, the surface is better than a chalkboard because you can do so much more blending with a rag or your fingers that you couldn’t do on a regular chalkboard.
Another favorite, which is really recent, is Mod Podge. It’s an adhesive and a sealant, and you can use it to prep certain surfaces like wood or cork. It comes in different formulas, some of which I can’t get in Canada, and each is suited to different mediums or surfaces. I can’t even begin to explain how wonderfully versatile this stuff is. I’ve recovered flats with cute fabric with the fabric formula. I made a set of coasters with the outdoor blend and my ex-boyfriend’s comics. I even used it to attach fabric and tissue to a canvas to make some really interesting artwork. The website (modpodgerocks.com) has a fab blog with great ideas almost daily, some are more ambitious than others, but either way, it’s safe to say that decoupage has come a long way since the 60s.
The last favorite item I will list today (don’t worry, I have so many more I can speak about in the future) is Washi Tape. This Japanese decorative paper tape is my new goto label medium, amongst other things. I’ve also used it to put up notes on the wall so they look pretty, and wrapped them around the edges of canvases to give some visual interest to the sides of my mixed media artwork. I also saw a DIY online for a clock where someone used Mod Podge Dimensional Magic, Scrabble tiles and Washi tape to replace the numbers. So there are any number of creative things you can do with Washi tape, it’s a good thing to have in your arsenal.
What are your craft essentials, or recent favorites?
