Technique & Tool: Chapter 3

Welcome to the 5th edition of The Pulse -- The State of the Art -- a survey in words and pictures of the online artist community. The Pulse is a collaborative project that aims to introduce you to new artists, help you get to know familiar faces even more, and allow you access into the creative hearts and minds of a very talented crew of individuals. More than 130 artists have answered a series of questions which make up The Pulse. Their responses will be presented in a series of online posts which will run every Sunday.

Style File was the first project posted and links to all 12 posts can be found on the sidebar of my blog. The second project, Techniques & Tools, continues now...

Participants were asked: 'The one technique or tool that you cannot live without is... ' I have added links of my own choosing to each contribution below, sometimes to products, sometimes to videos, sometimes to the artist's own work, and sometimes to something unexpected. Even the contributors do not know what I will be linking to!
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Kathryn Dyche Dechairo

While I love using brushes to paint I feel most connected with a piece when I put down my tools and use my fingers. Maybe it is reminiscent of finger painting as a child but the process feels much more instinctual that way. Nothing beats the feel of paint on my fingers as they move across a textured surface.
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Jill Zaheer


My brain. There's always something that you can find to color with, layer with, create on - but without my brain - there's no thought or emotion to draw from.
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Jeanie Thorn


There are two tools I could not live without: the first is my ability to problem solve and the second are the design principles that I learned in school and continue to learn while making art. Both have come to my rescue many times.
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Annie Kerr


Being out and about. Too much desk time makes my work grind to a halt. Nearly all my creative work arises from wanderings and wondering, the wilder the better.
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donna louise rodgers


My eyes and really seeing, being observant. I can hold pictures in my head until I have some other tool to get the mark onto a surface for others to see what I see.
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David Hayes


My hands. I use them in everything I create. I'm not happy unless I can get my fingers and hands into it...whether it's my drawings, my paintings, my collages...my fingers have to get involved...I have to Feel it! This is true even with my photography.
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Stacey Merrill


My eyes. I jump around with materials and techniques, but much of what I make is really just reinterpreting what I see.
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Cyn Richardson


My hands! I've used them to sculpt, carve, manipulate, feel the texture of things, recreate the texture, or a shape, or the size of something. I can make art with-out man-made tools as long as I have my hands.
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annie!

My imagination!
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Cathy Minerva (aka MinervasMadness)


My mind! Enough said...
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Karen Lee (aka The Colourguru)


In a very practical sense - my fingers and hands. Having had joint issues the last few years that have restricted some of my movement and in particular the ability to 'pinch', I realized how much I valued being able to 'smoosh' into paint, to smudge charcoal over titan buff paint and to life ink and watercolour that has travelled a little farther than I want it to. As far as supplies go - a Black Stabilo Marks All Pencil. Nothing is blacker or so versitile. Love it!!
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Next 'Techniques & Tools' will be posted on Sunday, October 9th