Lesson Three
Art Tools
​
While there is an infinite amount of tools that are used to create various pieces of art, we can only cover so many. Most of these you should recognize, so instead of simply stating a tool and it's purpose, we'll take a deeper look at each one.
Let's start our journey with the well-known paintbrush. There are three parts of a paintbrush: the bristles which are the part you paint with, the ferrule which is the part that attaches the bristles to the handle, and of course the handle. Paintbrushes come in all different sizes, but most generally, the ones with thicker bristles are used for filling in color and the smaller bristles are for detailing a project. Paintbrushes are used for a wide variety of reasons including home repairs and decorating. The three categories of paintbrushes are trade painter's for all jobs not artistically based such as painting a room, decorator's brushes are used for, as their name suggests, decorating various items, and artist's brushes are the small brushes used for painting.
Brush handles are usually made of wood or plastic and the ferrules are commonly made of metal. The bristles of a paintbrush are made from a variety of substances depending on the brush. They may be synthetic (made from polyester, nylon, or both) or natural (made from hair, a squirrel's, badger's, sable's, or hog's fur among a variety of other animals), but synthetic tends to last longer. Take a look at the picture below showing a close up of a paintbrush's bristles.
Going right along with paintbrushes, we have the actual paint. Paint is, as most people know, a liquid used to color a certain area. There are many different kinds of it from watercolor to oil paints. Paint can be sprayed onto a surface, applied with a brush, or through the use of other tools.
An important tool in the world of art is the easel. It is used when painting, drawing, sketching, etc... and it is used to hold up the canvas while the artist works. An easel is a sort of stand with usually three legs and a back that has a place for a canvas to sit and modern day easels are able to be adjusted to fit the specific canvas size.
A canvas is one of the most important tools as it is the actual place where lots of art is created. A typical canvas is made of woven fabric stretched out on a wooden frame. Canvas' were once made of linen and artists have been using them since at least the 14th century.
A painter's palette is a tool made of most commonly wood or plastic and used to mix paints. An artist will place their paint on its surface and then mix colors around and experiment a bit on their palette. Below is one of these painter's palettes filled with color.
Markers usually are made of felt tipped pens that are filled with colored ink. Of course markers come in many different versions from dry erase markers and sharpie markers to the washable markers. They were technically created in 1910 by Lee Newman.
​
Stamps are a fun art tool consisting of rubber. They are then pushed into colored ink pads and stamped onto something, normally paper, to create a design. Rubber stamps are a lot of fun and can be a quick and easy way to get a cute picture onto something.
To put up a bit of a break from our normal art supplies, I've included rocks as another art tool because they were used prehistorically. Today, they are used to make statues and carvings as were some of their uses in ancient times. Rock paintings, when people take a rock and literally paint a picture onto it, are quite popular today and super cute. As was mentioned in lesson one, rock art has been seen from prehistoric times drawn on cave walls.
Related to rocks are chisels, a tool with a sharp cutting blade. They can be used to carve and cut stone and create patterns and statues in rocks. They are sometimes used along with a club hammer to drill the chisel into the stone for a deeper cut.
