Wooden shish-ka-bob skewers, the type that you buy at the grocery store in a package of 100 for 99 cents make great painting tools.
When working in watercolor they are handy for applying masking fluid. First make sure your masking fluid is thin like water, not thick like gravy. If it is too thick, just add a little bit of water and stir with the wooden skewer. Do not shake the bottle as that will create bubbles. Then use the pointed end of the skewer to apply thin lines of masking fluid or the blunt end to make round dots of masking fluid.
Skewers also work to make tiny fine dark lines on a watercolor painting. For instance if you are painting a leaf with veins that are darker in color than the leaf itself, just paint the color of the leaf and while the paint is wet, scratch the veins into the paper with the pointed end of the skewer. The wet paint will roll into the line you scratched in the paper making it appear darker than the leaf.
Acrylic and oil painters working in impasto find these skewers useful for scratching detail into the impasto. They are also helpful for picking dried paint out of the end of a tube of paint.
So next time you are in the grocery store pick up a package of these skewers and see how many uses you can find for them around your studio. If you discover a new use, please add a comment to this blog post and share with all the artists that read this blog.
2 comments:
Several of you have emailed me some great suggestions for these skewers, but if you really want to share these ideas, emailing does not work. You have to click on "comment" below the post and write there for everyone to see your idea. The emails only go to me and then i have to re-type all of them in the comment section, takes forever! Write your comment, click on google account and then click on publish. easy!
These tips are really helpful. I will definitely buy some of these practical skewers. How much did you spend for the wooden skewers?
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