11 household items you can use in your art practice!

We bet you didn't know you could use these items in your art practice!! Well maybe you did... because we know how creative you lot are, but if you didn't... you're in for a treat. Check out these mind blowing hacks we discovered.

1. SPONGES

Sponges are amazing for your art practice. They come in a variety of different sizes and shapes, perfect for covering large areas, creating interesting textures and blending.

2. MOPS

If you're looking for an usual way of creating pattern and texture then a mop head is a great place to start. This type of mop head is also great for letting those frustrations out of the canvas! We slapped it around the surface and created these really unique texture strokes. We also think a big wide sponge mop head would be great for creating big expressive strokes over a large canvas!

3. DUST PAN AND BRUSH

This dust pan and brush combo was our favourite household hack!! The pan doubled as a handled palette and worked as a large flat palette knife, almost! The brush created beautiful big sweeping textured strokes. 

4. SQUEEGEE

I bet you guys knew about this one, another great hack for moving paint around your work surface. We also used this to create large paint splatters as well. Lots of fun getting messy with the squeegee and different paint colours!!

5. BUBBLE WRAP

We have a bit of bubble wrap here at Art Shed that we always try to reduce, reuse and recycle - so why not use it to create art as well!? We found this awesome large bubble wrap which created a really cool pattern!

6. CLING WRAP

Cling wrap is another great way to create interesting and unusual texture in your art practice. We applied it across wet paint and then repeated to press the paint soaked cling wrap across the canvas. It looked really cool!! This technique would be great for creating visual interest in landscape paintings! 

7. KITCHEN WIPES

Kitchen wipes are always great to have on hand if you need to quickly wipe up spills or clean up a cross colour contaminated item! We used a straw to drag across the canvas and to create texture - but it was the attached to the pump to go back into our paint bottle!! So we need to clean that up ASAP! We then used the kitchen wipe to apply the paint and to blend it in. 

8. HAIRDRYER

Do we need to explain this one? Great for quickly drying areas you want to continue working on and even moving paint around in different directions!

9. SPRAY BOTTLE

A spray bottle is always great to have on hand if you like a little bit of drip action in your artworks. It can also help you keep areas of the painting wet so you can keep working the acrylic paint and blending if you like to use the wet on wet techniques in your artist practice.

10. GARDEN RAKE?!

We're throwing everything at it now!!! This little garden rake was perfect for building up interesting scratchy strokes and creating unusual texture in heavy bodied acrylic. 

11. STRAW

A straw can be used for many things in your artist practice. For this example we dragged the paint across the surface of the canvas and created some cool blended strokes. You can also use (clean!) straws to blow the paint around, especially good for pouring painters!! 

The products we used:

• Mont Marte Premium Canvas Double Thick 24" x 48" - 60.9 x 121.8cm
• Mont Marte Signature Acrylic Paint Pump Bottle 2L - Titanium White
• Mont Marte Signature Paint Brush Set - Artist Brushes In Easel Wallet 17pc
• Mont Marte Acrylic Pouring Paint 240ml Bottle - Turquoise
• Mont Marte Acrylic Pouring Paint 240ml Bottle - Cerulean Blue
• Mont Marte Acrylic Pouring Paint 240ml Bottle - Mint Green
• Mont Marte Acrylic Pouring Paint 240ml Bottle - Phthalo Turquoise
• Boom Gel Stain 250ml - Pearlescent Teal
• Matisse Fluid Acrylic 135ml S2 - Southern Ocean Blue

We hope you enjoyed this blog just as much as we enjoyed creating it!! Don't forget to always have fun, play and experiment with different techniques. As always, stay creative!