Spread the Word

Today I want to tell you about a Clever Tool. Last autumn I came across some pretty funny-looking brushes that stopped me in my tracks. They weren’t really brushes, because instead of bristles they had a shaped tip made from silicone, and they were called clay or paint shapers. Now, I didn’t have a clue about how I would use them, but they looked like Something That Might Come In Handy For Something. They were pretty cheap too, so I bought them – and forgot about them.

Silicone clay or paint shapers

Much later I was watching an episode of Linda and Laura Kemshall’s Design Matters TV (the episode Watercolour Tricks), and there Linda offered this excellent tip: you can use rubber shaping tools for applying masking fluid. That was very interesting news to me. About the same time that I bought my shaping tools, I had also had a go at masking fluid. The question of how to apply the fluid was still open though. I had ruined two brushes, and I didn’t like wooden sticks. So this tip sounded promising. But I didn’t try it at once – and forgot about it.

When this month’s theme for the Sketchbook Challenge (Can’t Resist) was announced, I knew right away that the time was ripe to put Linda’s tip to the test. And I’m more than pleased with the result. The different tips on the tools make it easy to create a variety of marks with the masking fluid, and it was really easy to remove the masking fluid from the tip: wet or dry, it just peeled away with a light wipe. So if you haven’t tried this already, I recommend that you do. It certainly has made the use of masking fluid less problematic for me.

Here’s an example of some of the shapes that I quickly masked out with the help of my shaping tools. You can see the whole page on Flickr.