I've been experimenting with unusual tools.
Here's a picture of my most recent set.
Plastic cellophane is not an obvious tool but it helps add texture to wet paint. The cellophane was saved from a bunch of flowers.
My favourite tool at the moment is the rag! Who would have thought it? I love the way it creates an atmospheric look and when I add the paint over the textured areas it leaves interesting marks from previous colours.
An old Bic pen lid is a wonderful drawing tool, again into wet paint.
And another plastic that I find interesting is clingfilm. I can pick up paint from the palette and place it onto the canvas. It's very useful to use this method at the end of the day when I have wet paint I need to use up. The results are often quite surprising.
Well that is some of the tools I use. I know it might seem somewhat weird to be using such tools when there are tried and tested tools such as the brush. And I'd agree, that for a lot of refined work you can't beat a brush. But I find that when I use a brush my mind suddenly goes into detail mode and for much of my work this just isn't needed. I love paintings that are layered with hints of previous layers poking through, impressionistic or abstract.
I'll show you later on in the summer the paintings I've been working on but in the meantime...
I have a challenge for you. The next time you feel a bit bored and want something new to do you don't necessarily need to start a whole new hobby. It could be a simple change in how and what you're doing. A change of the materials, colours, textures or even subject matter, be adventurous. You never know you may find something more exciting and if it's a total mess, well, that doesn't matter either, you will have had fun trying.