Some of My Favorite Tools

Here is one of my favorite pieces of fabric from my recent painting extravaganza. It wasn't ironed very well when I started painting , so that ended up creating cool and unexpected lines toward the bottom where the wrinkles were. This is from the paint getting stopped in a line as I sponged it on. I used the following two tools with black, gold and mustard yellow paint.

This is the type of sponge that I like to use for painting, a hydrophilic (meaning loves and attracts water) foam. It acts very differently than the usual cellulose kitchen sponge (related to the sponge printing from yesterday's post). I cut up the big sponge into smaller, more usable pieces, wet it, squeeze out the excess water, and then dip it into some paint colors and pounce,dab and/or smear the paint onto the fabric.

The second tool used to create this piece is plastic furniture carpet protectors. You can get these at the hardware store, so far I've only found these two shapes, but I have seen them in smaller sizes. I just dip them into the paint that I'm using, or sponge some paint onto the prongs and then print right onto the fabric.
I really like the orderliness of the dots along with the chaotic sponged on color.

This piece was also made with just one tool.

A smallish (3x4") piece of a styrofoam food tray, deeply incised with a ballpoint pen. I sponge the paint right onto the foam surface and then print it onto the fabric.

Another one tool piece.A thick piece of design board (like posterboard with foam in the middle), cut on one of the edges to secure a heavy string wrapped around in a pattern. It is becoming a neat object all on its own after all the times that I've used it now.

This piece was made by spongeing paint onto the fabric which is on top of bubble wrap, that gives the background texture, then the round furniture protector was used to provide all those regular dots.