Studio Tools
This section is to give you an idea of the things Dee will be using in her studio when creating her art.
Her art studio is currently under construction. Dee will get photographs of the room once all walls and floors are complete, then she'll give regular updates regarding its construction and then the items she'll be putting in there.
This is something Dee has been waiting over 5 years for, so she's very excited to be getting it done. Her hope is she will be in by this summer (2022) however the way the year has started has not been great so she's trying hard not to get her hopes up just in case anything else goes wrong.
Here are a few items she uses day to day when creating her art to make life a little easier and her art even better.
Pencils
Dee keeps a drawer of Faber-Castell pencils, these range from H6 to B6 in hardness/softness, these are what she uses to draw a light, fine outline of the subject she is drawing. I would think there's not one artist studio that doesn't keep pencils as they're probably one of the most important items to any artist that draws, paints etc.
Anti Smudge Glove
Many artists will use these gloves, especially when they're drawing on a white or light background. A drawing glove also called an artist glove or two-finger glove, is a glove that prevents your drawing from getting smudged on traditional media like paper. Dee uses these on occasion but finds them more of a hindrance when drawing on pastel paper as they tend grip the glove and restrict movement.
Kneaded Putty Eraser
A kneaded eraser, also commonly known as a putty rubber, is a pliable erasing tool used by Dee and most artists. It is usually made of a grey or white unvulcanised rubber (though it can be found in many different colors, such as green, blue, hot pink, yellow, and so forth) resembling putty or chewing gum. It functions by absorbing and "picking up" graphite, charcoal and pastel particles and dust, in addition to carbon, colored pencil, or pastel marks. It neither wears nor leaves residue, like crumbs from a typical rubber/erasrer, thereby lasting much longer than other erasers which make them much more cost effective which is very important to Dee.
Eraser
An eraser, also known as a rubber, from the material first used to create them, is an article of stationery that is used for removing marks from paper or skin (e.g. parchment or vellum). Erasers have a rubbery consistency and come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors. Although Dee uses the putty erasers, she does keep the standard erasers on her studio shelf as they always come in handy for removing marks that the putty erasers can't remove.
Dust Brush
Because Dee uses soft pastels they create a lot of dust, so whilst drawing and putting colour into them, Dee will use a large very soft brush to remove the dust without smudging it a Ross the paper. She uses smaller Brushes to clean close up to the subject and tight areas where her large brush won't fit without brushing over the actual drawing itself
Proper Brushes like these from an art supy shop can be quite expensive, so Dee went and looked at the Brushes, felt the softness of the brushes bristles and then bought a large brush from a shop that sells makeup, she found the best match to the art brush and found it worked just the same.
Pencil Extender
Pencil extenders are available in a huge variety of styles and prices, and can suit lots of different people and purposes.
You get more use from each pencil, so you can keep using pencils when they are too short to use otherwise, or at least, you can use them more comfortably than if you were struggling to hold the little stub you had left! Especially with expensive pencils, this can be important, for Dee, her pastel pencils vary in price, but they're still expensive, so getting as much use out of them as possible, however these are good to use with any pencil.
The pure simplicity of a pencil is often its best feature, but sometimes you want more features. Perhaps you want a pocket clip, or it would really help if there was a sharpener attached to the pencil at all times. And if you want to put a pencil in your pocket, it would really help if there was a simple way to cover the tip so it doesn't stab you or get snapped. You might like using a pencil, but a standard wooden pencil just doesn't look right in front of the nice smart possible client your meeting. Pencil extenders can do all these things, so Dee keeps a dozen or so in a cup on a shelf with all her other studio items.
Pastel Shapers
These tools allow you to draw, paint and blend with pastels. They can also be used with most water-based art and craft materials to create a variety of exciting new techniques, marks and effects. Finished effects are different to brushes as the brush stroke is eliminated.
A variety of Colour Shaper that has an angled flat rubber nib or a round pointed nib., then you have a number of different sizes, and all these different nibs create a wide variety of different marks and blending techniques, so Dee finds these very useful especially when creating fur. For this reason Dee keeps a number of different Pastel Shapers on her shelves and hopes to find more in the future.
Tortillions
A tortillion is a strip of paper that has been rolled to form a stick with a sharp point at one end which makes them look like a pencil. These are used to blend colour once it has already been applied to paper and are particularly good for belending very detailed areas without losing any of the detail. Dee uses these usually on a daily basis, so she keeps quite a large amount these.
Soft Silicone Dust Blower
Dee's Air Blower is made of premium silicone material, which makes it soft and very easy to use. These are usually use for clearing dust and small particles from things like keyboards or cameras etc. ,and are great for getting into small crevices without leaving residues. The Dust Blower shoots direct powerful streams of air to blow away debris from your delicate devices without physical contact, so Dee finds this a great option for blowing away any excess pastel dust without causing any damage to her art, they're also non-toxic and environmental-friendly which is also a great plus to Dee. Its a small enough design to fit in any of her art drawers or boxes,, its also easy to grip and Dee can still use it even with a broken arm. This was one of Dee's favourite and cheapest buys and probably gets the most use in the studio to keep her drawings dust free and her desk and surrounding areas.
Pencil Eraser/Mechanical Pencil
Dee has a number of these erasers in varying sizes. The mechanical eraser is a Mono Zero eraser, these are available in a number of different sizes, however Dee uses the smallest of these erasers which is the ultra fine 2.3mm as its great for clearing tiny areas and also great for creating highlights in a drawing. The great thing about these erasers are instead of throwing them away when the run out, you just add a new eraser as you can buy new eraser refills. Dee plans to buy more of these in the future in the different sizes to use to help create her art.
Dee also uses pencil erasers. Basically a pencil but instead of lead it has an eraser through the centre. You can sharpen these like a pencil and Dee uses these as she does the mechanical eraser. She's usually buys these in a pack of 5 or 6 from a company called Arteza, but is currently running low (hence the stump) The difference between these erasers is the pencil eraser has a flat brush on the end, perfect for brushing away any eraser bits, though Dee tends to use her Blower as not to damage her artwork.
Mechanical Pencil
Dee tends to use a mechanical pencil over standard pencils as she just finds them more comfortable to hold. These usually come with a small 3 or 4mm eraser on the top and you can buy new small cases of devil leads. Dee just loves the fact that with these there's no need for any pencil sharpeners, Dee's pet hate.
Dee plans to treat herself to a Faber-castell mechanical pencil along with a new fountain pen, which Dee loves to write with.
Bulldog Clamps
Dee uses these for So many different things, from hanging them on a hook with statements or notes clamped in them, up to holding her tablet up in front of her by clamping the tablets case and hanging it in the place most suitable. They are just so useful and come from tiny to very large so Dee always keeps a good number of them handy.
Craft knife
Another useful thing that Dee always keeps close by when draeing3. Though obviously great for cutting things and getting into parcels, Dee usually uses these blades for sharpening her pastel pencils and for shaving off pastel dust to use with a brush or sponge as this is a great technique for soft shading etc.
Slice Craft Knife
These knives are one of the greatest finds for Dee. Although a knife Dee uses these for creating fine lines when creating hair or fur. The blades are changeable so you can get different shapes and so, es, however the blade that Dee's currently using is the one she finds just right for what she uses it for.
There are many different Slice knives available and Dee does hope to buy a number of different ones to see what uses she can find for them.
Small Notebook
Dee keeps a number of these to hand as she finds them great for keeping records of her pastel pencil stocks plus notes for clients, regarding improving a technique for her artwork or keeping notes of new techniques. There are so many reasons to keep small notebooks and for these reasons Dee has quite a few ready to put in her new art studio.
Posco Pen
Dee keeps just one colour and one size of these paint pens. When creating eyes Dee likes to get them as realsic as possible, the one thing she found was no matter how much she tried to create light shiniing in the eye they just never seemed bright enough, for this reason Dee tried using a white posco paint marker and found they worked just great. Dee only uses the 0.7mm, which is very fine, giving her the option of creating very fine but right detail in the eyes she is creating.
Sponges and Eye Shadow Applicators
Square, triangle, round, wedged, double ended and many more. Dee originally bought some Sponges from PanPastel, using them to smudge her pastels creating different effects for fur, scales, shadows etc. Because she had great effect using these Sponges she went out and bought a large pack of Sponges in many shapes and sizes. Dee also bought rye shadow applicators to use for the same thing, but in smaller areas and for fine detail. There are Applicators which are the same shape with a longer handle available, however Dee didn't want to spend the money on them if they werent right, however now she knows they work Dee will buy more from PanPastel and use the cheaper ones when not so fine detail is needed.
Sand Paper
Such a basic thing that most people have in their garage or shed, but also a perfect item when using pastel pencils. After sharpening a pastel pencil with the craft knife Dee then rubs the pastel lead on the sandpaper creating a very pointed fine point which then enables her create very fine lines and detail when creating her animal portraits.
Swordfish Ikon Pencil Sharpener
This is something new that Dee's just added to her studio items. She actually had a sharp er like the Swordfish that she ought from Derwent, however it never seemed to work properly and would either snap pencil leads or shred the pastel pencils so that just sits on a shelf, however after reading numerous positive reports and seeing numerous positive reviews Dee decided that she was going to try the Swordfish Ikon, one of the postitives for Dee was that the barrel in the centre of the sharpner was able to be taken out and replaced with new blades to keep it nice and sharp for the pastel pencils as the biggest problem with sharpening pastel pencils is they blunt blades very quickly.
Spray Bottle
A water spray bottle is quite an ew addition to Dee's studio items. As she's started teaching herself how to paint with watercolours. To paint successfully with watercolours having a water spray bottle is a must to not only keep paints wet but also to sprray the watercolour paper that your painting on nice and damp/wet. Dee has a large spray bottle for the studio and a small spray bottle for when she's travelling so she can paint some landscapes
Watercolour Pens
Due to Dee's move into learning how to use watercolours, the one thing she wanted was some watercolour pens. She got herself a very cheap set to see if they are what she liked, if so a more expensive set will be sought in the future. Thankfully Dee has enjoyed using them so I'm sure more will appear in the future.
Mixing Pallettes
Something Dee has quite a few of is these and I'd suspect if you went and looked in most art rooms or studios you'd find many of them there too. Dee is always in need of Pallettes or pallette trays like the one below, though Dee prefers a standard flat painting pallette for oil or acrylic paints and tends to use the trays below for her watercolours.
Masking Tape/Frogtape
Dee uses quite a lot of masking tape to edge all her art pieces adding a border of tape, She also uses it to tape down her art piece to either her art board or studio desk keeping the art in place and safe..
Dee says a studio can never have enough Frogtape.
The tape she's currently using is called Frogtape and her favourite thing is not just that its brilliant, but also it's name and logo picture 😁