The Fates Have Conspired Against Me . . . And Oh Yeah, I Got A New Tool
Just so you know, today was supposed to be a no post day for me. I was supposed to be tripping through pony muffins at this very moment. But alas it was not to be.
You see Carol Herden, my very talented sculptor friend had invited me to go along to the Iowa State Fair to deliver the awards she had created for the Percheron competition and then we would just play. I imagine we’d look at horses exhibits, look at art exhibits, eat fair food, ride fair rides, loose our lunches from too much tilt-a-whirl. You know. . . the usual. Plus we haven’t seen each other since our trip to the Kentucky Horse Park last year. And now she’s moving to MN so I’ll see her even less. Well maybe not less, but not any more either. So I was really amped for a day of frivolous play with a friend I rarely see. And yes, this is where the Fates stepped in.
She had called a week or two back and had told me all about an artistic catastrophe she was going through with a big order for a big client. Well this catastrophe landed physically back in her lap this very morning. And so she, being the conscientious artist she is, wanted to get right on resolving the problem.
Okay so your thinking well that’s an interesting coincidence but you can’t really blame the Fates can you? Well get this . . . her neighbors just happened to be going to the fair today and just happened to stop in and tell her. And upon hearing her story, they offered to deliver the awards for her. (sigh)
She apologized profusely and hoped that I understood. Which of course I said that I did (and I do) even though at that moment what I was really thinking was “Oh crap on a cracker!”
At any rate I am here at the gallery, so I thought I should make a post since I’m on some sort of freaky post-a-thon with like 10 days in a row or something. Which for me, is like some kind of Christmas miracle . . . or at the very least a record.
So ahem . . . here’s actually something to do with art
I got a new color shaper last time I was at Wet Paint in St. Paul, MN. (the all time best art supply store that I’ve ever been in. That may be more about my living in the boonies than anything. But I think on the whole it is an awesome art supply store, regardless.)
The photo above left shows my new shaper compared to one of my old ones with a penny thrown in for scale. I bought my old shaper set through Cheap Joe’s (my all time favorite on-line art supply store) but since I couldn’t see them I had no idea how big they were. I love my new one, as in I haven’t touched the old shapers since I got it.
I have no idea what these things are actually made for. (If anyone knows, please fill me in.) A watercolorist friend of mine says she uses them for scraping away still wet paint before it soaks in the paper. At any rate, I use them to blend out the edges that I don’t want my oil pastels to blend out. (okay, that’s not so very clear)
So for instance the area between my bear and the background. I don’t want to muddy my yellows and I want crisp marks into the background. So I smooth with this thingy. The chisel tip is 1/4 wide and very firm.
Note: My Bear painting is done and will post completed image soon. Also I’m making progress on my rooster. At least I’m getting some art done even though I’d rather be eating corn dogs right now.
Tags: technique
I think they are silicone rubber. The white tip ones are Soft, the one you just bought is Firm — which works much much better on oil pastels than the white Soft ones do. Blick also carries the black-tip Extra Firm ones called Clay Shapers.
I bought a size 2 Firm chisel point one, the same one you’ve got, after I got a white size 6 pair in a pastel spreaders set for soft pastels, chisel tip and cone tip (taper point.) Then I got the size 2 set of Clay Shapers since I really wanted to try the Extra Firm and Blick didn’t have them separately. The black ones work even better on oil pastels, though the gray Firm one works well with them too.
I know eventually I want to get some large ones, like a set of the size 6 extra firm ones. The sets have all five shapes and some of the others are interesting too. Chisel is the most useful though, even though I wound up with all these others I use the Chisel tip one most.
I stopped using the white ones on OP at all and they have gone back to being soft pastels tools. You can get one from Pan Pastels but that seems to have a Firm tip rather than Soft tip, it’s the same color as the Firm one.and quite larger, closer to a size 6 one.
I love using them. They rock for pushing the color around, blending soft edges, doing tiny details, they have a thousand uses with oil pastels. Including playing with the Senns and Holbeins when I’m using the somewhat toxic colors, then I’m not getting them on my fingers as much.
Interesting, though what were they originally created for. Was it for pastel and Op or something else entirely?