Tip 1: Use d-Limonene instead of acetone for cleaning your acrylics. d-Limonene is made from orange peel extract and is what Styrofoam recyclers started using instead of Acetone. Why it's better is one you get the same cleaning, two it's not a harsh toxic chemical (Your lungs and eyes will thank you) , three you have a nice orange / citrus smell, and four it's organic so you can dispose of it any way you want. Tips 2: Draw in little circles instead of lines when filling in an area to color it. It blends much better and the intensity of color can be changed based on pressure or number of layers drawn.
For digital artists! You might look at layer options and wonder what the heck is a vector layer. A vector layer is a layer that, when the lines on that layer are resized, keeps the lines smooth! So no more fuzziness when you make your drawing bigger or smaller :D
Art tip: chalk pastels (especially the lighter shades) get dirty with the dust of the other colors…put cornmeal in a ziplock, toss in your dirty pastels and shake the bag. Your pastels come out nice and clean again! And the best part is you can just zip up the cornmeal bag and keep it with your pastels to use over and over again. I have had my sandwich bag of cornmeal for years and it looks too dirty to clean anything but I tell you at it’s still doing the trick.
For watercolor artists, if you wanna paint clouds, make the whole sky a wash of the color you want it (aka blues or sunset colors) and make sure it is a lot of water and the paper is wet. After you let the pain soak in for like 20 seconds use a towel you cramped up to take off some of the paint in some areas. You will be left with beautiful white spots that resemble clouds. Adding gray in some areas over that spot can help it become more life like. Hope this helps other struggling artists like it did for me!
Thank you, I have tried paper towels for removing paint as well. Sea sponges, etc. I will be trying this method out again, seeing how I can change up the cumples and wrinkles.
There's a reason Wite Out works so well as a white paint. The inventor of the original brand Liquid Paper, Bette Nesmith Graham, was a secretary who was also an artist. She realized she could use white paint to fix typing mistakes in her secretarial job and came up with her own formula for the correction fluid. I remember in school Liquid Paper was an absolute must-have school supply! So fun to see it come full circle as an artist supply as well!
I got into The Monkees when the show was on MTV back in the 80s. My friends and I were floored when we learned that Mike Nesmith's mother invented Liquid Paper.
@@Vanilla644 A lot of kids huff it. When I was in junior high, it was up to the individual teachers if we could use it or not. One of our science teachers caught on and would only let us use it at his desk. I don't think we could use it in high school.
@@gracefulannie-grcflannie- I've always been a Monkees fan - that was how I found out about its origins too! I was so excited when we found out the Monkees were going to be on MTV. My family bought our very first VCR just so I could stay up and record every episode. 😍
When you first open a tube of paint, swipe the threads of the cap with a bit of petroleum jelly or wax to help prevent dried paint getting all up in there and making the cap nigh impossible to remove without mangling the tube. Reapply whenever you feel it's wearing thin.
@@charlirobinson1548 u got that right. Also be careful when purchasing e6000 Joannes often runs out but they still have black or white and I made the mistake of buying black for shoe repair on a pastel shoe and did not realize it until it had already made a mess. Just sayin!
I only paint with makeup brushes! I discovered this a few years ago after I had a party (alcohol was involved) and my friends got into my paint and brushes and left them out to crust all night and they were kinda done for. I wanted to paint something that week and was like dammit! But realized I had a huge cabinet full of unused makeup brushes and was like “Damn, why hadn’t I thought to use these before?” They are so much smoother and more refined than most artist brushes for the price. When you go to buy a high quality artist brush they can get insanely expensive. You can get a pack of Walgreens brand makeup brushes in all different sizes and shapes and they paint like a dream.
Crusted paintbrushes can be saved if it's only been a few days. Coat the bristles in linseed oil and let them sit for 24 hours or so. Then wash them with a solid brush cleaner. There's no need to go spend more money even if it's cheap stuff. You're better off just reviving the brushes, IMHO.
My art hack ✏️: Whenever doing drawings with coloured pencils, use a base like paints, markers etc. which will make the process MUCH quicker. You will be able to cover large areas in little time and after that you can use coloured pencils to add details. If you use only coloured pencils, you will take a lot of time and finish through your pencil fairly quickly. Hope this helps :)
Paint as in watercolor paint right? Because I would imagine with acrylic paint the pencil will just scrape it off but maybe there's something I don't know
For photographing your artwork, do not shoot under bright sunlight; wait for a slightly overcast day, so that there is a thin layer of cloud to diffuse the sunlight. Make certain the the sun is at one side of your artwork, and place a reflector ( a sheet of white poster board or foam core makes a really effective and really inexpensive reflector ) on the other side. You will get a very even lighting effect with no highlights or shadows.
and when you put a piece of white paper under your artwork, sticking out a bit, you can adjust the colours of your photo refering to that white bit of paper on your computer, then crop the photo
@@Lulisette The trick I do, is I keep a piece of white cardboard in my camera bag, and use it to manually calibrate the white balance on the camera. I like your tip, as it could be used to confirm how accurate the WB correction was!
I've found that regular rubbing alcohol removes even dry acrylic paint from your paint brush.i got little ones that always let the paint dry on my brushes
My art tip: the best way to learn/ practise mixing colors is to pick out ONLY red, yellow, blue and white paint and then mix all the colors you need for your piece YOURSELF. Including black. Even if you own the exact color you need - forget it and make it yourself. Fr it's such a helpful challenge. Edit: as the comments pointed out - yes, the primary subtractive colors (cyan, magenta, yellow) would be better for this challenge. If you can, use these three colors (and white). However if you don't own cyan or magenta paint (almost nobody did at the school we learnt this challenge at), just use red and blue instead. Trust me it still works wonders.
@@hearts4marzz when doing it often enough it will almost go automaticly, but for starters I'd say make a slightly red brown and a slightly blue purple and blend them together. After than you can experience with adding little bits of colour and see what works best. Make sure to make quite a lot so that you won't have to remake that color. And oh, I see that most people hesititate using yellow cause blue and red look darker, but yellow is absolute a must.
I've never heard of anyone doing this...but I tell every artist I meet. I ALWAYS flip my drawing or painting around (through the entore process) and and look at it in a mirror. You can spot your mistakes with proportion, symmetry, weird white space...I do it with all of my work and I can't even express how helpful it is. Especially, when you're like "I know something isn't right...but what?"
I learned this in my first drawing class and it's an invaluable step! And I'll squint when I look at the reflection--it really helps me to see the values of my colors.
I used to teach art in school. I kept an oversized mirror in the back of my classroom and taught, even 3rd graders how to use it. They made my heart sing when they would actually use it!
My art tip: Not all colors have the same tonal value. It’s part of the reason red and green look extremely similar to some people. It helps to occasionally snap a photo of your artwork and edit out the saturation of your colors (y’know grayscale) and seeing the tonal contrast of your piece. It can help to organize your most saturated paints in tonal order. Also, darkening yellow with black can create a muddy green color. Darken with brown instead.
Purple is better in my opinion. At least with watercolors, which is my preferred medium. I think it's because purple is opposite to yellow on the color wheel.
My art hack: so during the whole process of drawing anything you should always flip the artwork or look at it through a mirror so you can check if you got the proportions and perspectives right. If it looks wonky and weird you'll know which part you messed up and can fix it quickly. It works because we get used to seeing the work so much we overlook the mistakes and it becomes apparent when it's flipped.( Not upside down like mirror view flipped) i don't know if this can be called an art hack but sure did help me a lot when I was first starting out and didn't know much about perspectives and proportions.
you always see digital artists flipping their canvas but somehow it never occurred to me to use a mirror to do the same thing traditionally lol! good tip!!
This is totally a traditional technique and I still forget! It's really good. The other one is to stand far away from it, especially if you are painting large.
I also love my colored pencils, my preferred brand is prismacolors also. I completely agree with the white being the best for blending anything!! I’ve even used it to blend marker and pencils or even gel pens. I’ll use my pencils till there is nothing left which leads me to another hack for those who can’t afford to get the premium art supplies like me. When my pencils are too short I simply stick them into a soda straw. I cut them down to a length that will hold 2 pencils (1 on each side’. 😊
Cool. I seem to love certain pencils, they get short and have to be replaced too soon, and I never like the new ones as well. Ho-hum. Good idea 💡 though.
It is usually impossible to color a double sided coloring book with alcohol markers. Art hack: Get clear gesso and spread with a sponge on the part of the paper you want to color let it dry for around ten minutes. The print of your marker will not go on to the other side of the page. It works like magic. (◕ᴗ◕✿)
I saw a TH-cam video on that.. But it made the surface uneven and spoilt the marker tips. Can you please suggest what to apply the gesso with to get a smooth surface!
I love that at almost 2mil followers, her biggest videos at near 7mil views, she just reviewed colored pencils over $1k, but so many of these hacks are perfect for us broke artists. Rae never forgets her broke Dollar Tree Art days and I love her for that because that’s where I’m still at in my art journey.
I'm also there. I do like dollar tree though. I like to pick up stuff from there. Sometimes stuff is not quality but sometimes they hit it out of the park . I got a rubber mallet there. I got glass pens there. And it came with a small container of ink. I know rae uses the poster board paper for making quality stuff, but sometimes I just take a piece and i doodle it with a dollar free sharpie. I cut some of my paper post card size since i draw small.
@@nickorange4881 Dollar General is another good store for inexpensive but ok art stuff. I have a couple of little sketchbooks I carry with me everywhere that I got from there. Good for practice.
@@mornasev yes. I got a mini sketchbook there that i plan to put in my bag. After I'm done with my current mini sketchbook. It's so Convenient to have that size. Much better than the big spiral i had that's the size of about printer paper but is heavy. I wanted to draw regularly but it was heavy and such a pain to bring around.
@@nickorange4881did you mean to say dollar free 😅😂😂 Please dont ask me why that's so funny. Its an inside joke. With myself. Im gonna start using that though. Dollar free all day. They BOGO a lot more than they know.
Also a perspective/landscape (idk what to describe it as) hack, when drawing a scene with multiple figures, have each figures eyeline line up with the horizon line. This will prevent different figures from looking like they’re floating or sinking, and keeps everything on the same level. (Of course further distanced subjects will be smaller compared to closer ones, but they should still line up with the horizon line!)
Another great spot for good lighting for smaller objects is inside the fridge! I’ve been into nail art for many years and lots of us take hand and swatch pics in the fridge. You can put colored paper or fabric in there for a background. It’s better than most light boxes. 😊
Omg thank you! I have a really crappy camera and really poor lighting in my apartment. I have to take so many pictures of my art and then edit it slightly to make it even look close to how it actually looks in person lol. This will help me so much! ❤
I love the ingenuity of this and of all the commenters. Isn't sharing great? Wouldn't the world be so much a greater place if we all shared freely? Thanx for this not only for the useful hack but for your free floating inventiveness and willingness to take the time to share. Blessings!
The best art advice that has stuck with me for years was from Neil on "Art Attack" (a tv series geared towards kids - I was a kid at the time) is this: Draw what you see, not what you think you see. It's very "basic" advice and may come automatically to a lot of people, but it has always stuck with me.
The technique I use for transferring a reference image onto another sheet of paper, is to place them both up against a window, and use it like a light table. What I do to get clean edges with masking, is to use electrical tape instead of masking tape. Because it's non-porous, it can't absorb paint that would lead to bleeding. Be careful when you overlap it, so that you have tiny gaps where it crosses another piece of tape. When I used to do house painting, I would save money on trim brushes by buying the cheapest one they had at the dollar store, then I'd use a beard trimmer to clean up the ends of the bristles, so that I could nice tight cut lines. If you use OLFA or X-Acto knives a lot, learn how to sharpen and hone them! Blades can now last months or even years. I only replace them when they break now.
My art hack: I was once recommended by an art friend to put a sponge (cut to the shape of the cup) at the bottom of the paintbrush water to gently wash the brushes on. I was surprised how well it worked and I've been using the trick ever since.
One hack I discovered recently: Whenever you are tracing a drawing on another piece of paper pin it together with bobby pins. It is so much more convenient than using tape because you don't risk ripping the paper. Hope that helps ❤️
Im on an acrylic paint forum for beginners on FB and a lady there told us to use Vit E oil or olive oil and add a little to our acrylic paint and then it would act more like an oil paint and would blend better, dry slower and also bring out the color more. She said she uses it just for certain areas. She said her aunt did this for 40 years and was a great artist. I tried the Vit E and found it too thick and sticky, so then switched to olive oil and it really is amazing!
Acrylic paint art hack: do you ever miss using layers in digital art, being able to delete them when you don't like the result? Very high percentage alcohol (like hand sanitizer) will take thin layers of acrylic paint off your canvas, you can easily remove a glaze like this for example. I use a q-tip. And if you wanna make sure you don't remove too much paint underneath, just use any kind of transparent medium, or even a thin coat of vanish before adding a new layer on top of the work you are already happy with. That way the alcohol will definitely not mess it up in case you wanna remove what you paint over it. :)
Also helpful if you get acrylic paint on somewhere it's not supposed to be! 😳 Like your favorite shirt, furniture etc. I pretty much only do art in "art clothes" now. 😂
The gray canvas works on digital art too! Either program your default "paper" color or make a layer and fill it with 50% gray. It really makes a difference!
Brilliant!! My hack for gelly roll pens that dry out (the black ones are the worst) is hot water soak in a tupperware with lid on, 10-15 minutes, shake firmly, and dip the tip/nib in koh-i-noor rapidograph calligraphy pen cleaner, cap it wet, shake,again and draw a few strokes. Something in that solution cleans up the dried pen. Repeat the process as it may need to work into the tip... Also store the pens flat or horizontal if stacking them in a cosmetic bag. This works for watercolor brush pens, just a dab, not a full soak, whether felt, synthetic, and plastic nibs, roller balls, tech pens, dip ink, spray nozzles, droppers, pipettes, etc. Also, to ride on the crayola watercolor idea, is using highlighters (water based, re-wettable), and mildliners (archival/permanent when dry) nd the like as a base layer(s) that's translucent/transparent/neon-ish to mix colors or provide a wash.
My painting hack : to get a darker shade of any color instead of using black, use just a little amount of the complementary color. Its fricking magic. The most beautiful darks greens just by adding a bit of Magenta or Red. So my second hack is embrace Magenta, the primary "red" for color mixing. And if you want red, just mix yellow with Magenta, magic.
I can confirm that when I figured this out it changed my life. Using complementary colours is now pretty much my go to technique for creating any sort of shadows, cause they seem to blend in way better than black, in multiple mediums
Add paint to spackle (drywall repair paste). It makes a wonderful 3D effect. It can be applied with a pallet knife or put it in a decorating bag to bring flowers or anything else off the canvas or whatever you are painting on.
Yes! And along the same lines, if you are just playing and using cheap products (not worried about archival quality) you can also add a bit of Elmer's/PVA glue to spackle. The added glue changes the texture and makes it less likely to crack, especially if adding cheap craft paint that has less binder and pigment. Knowing both is great, because they have different textures/looks when dried.
Art hack for helping you learn how to draw portraits. What helped me was learning how to do makeup. Specifically drag and cosplay makeup. It allowed me to figure out dimensions of the face and how they are expressed in a 3-D setting and it was very helpful when I went back to drawing.
2:49 I just tried this art hack out, but I didn't have cornstarch. So I used baby powder instead, and it works great! So if you don't have cornstarch you can use baby powder too❤️
FYI: Baby powder is just cornstarch. It used to be made from talc but since the talc mined to produce baby powder typically also contained asbestos, which causes cancer, companies stopped using it and changed to using cornstarch. Johnson & Johnson has been in court for years trying to defend that fact that they KNEW there was asbestos in their baby powder for years but did nothing about it. Thousands of women have gotten cancer that is directly related to their use of baby powder but Johnson & Johnson trying to hurt them again by working to not have to pay for their huge medical bills. It's really fucked up. 😪
It depends; some baby powders actually are cornstarch (with fragrance added in), while others have a talc base. I don't see any reason why talc wouldn't mix with acrylic, but I don't know if a talc-based powder would work exactly the same way. 😊
Most baby powder is made with cornstarch these days (at least in the US) because talc can be toxic and cause problems if used regularly long-term. That said, yes, read the label.
Don't add corn starch to any paint, it will become mouldy because it is organic. If you wish to thicken acrylic paint add chalk powder or gesso, mineral will not become mould fodder in your painted pieces.
Thats a good point, but it depends on the environmental conditions the paint is in. Starch based adhesives (starch and water) have been used for hundreds of years in bookbinding and it's well known that it won't rot unless it gets wet. There are many centuries old books that haven't rotted. Starch in paint should act similarly. I would expect the acrylic binder would make it more resistant as well. What I can't speak to is the effect time will have on the color. Wheat starch adhesives are known to resist yellowing, but corn starch is kind of an unknown.
I have items made from cornstarch "clay" painted with acrylic that are better than 30 years old and they show no sign of molding, fading, or yellowing. And still as shiny as the day they were made.
@@lia.lia.lia. check the baby powder composition, if it is calcite talc and dolomite its fine because they are minerals, but money wise I think it will be more expensive.
For pottery: put a layer of plastic between the clay and where you sign your pieces. It prevents a crumby scratchy signature. I like using ziploc freezer bags or clay bag plastic. Also putting cling wrap between a cookie cutter and the clay when you're cutting something like ornaments prevents the clay from sticking to the cutter (it also works for baking sugar cookies).
I've known about the hairspray fixative hack since 1971 when my mom put me in a summer art camp. The preferred brand was Aqua Net and the only reason I remember that is because it's what my mom used. When I attended college twenty some years later, Aqua Net was still the recommended brand!
Yup. Long live Aqua Net for fixative. Cheap hairspray is awesome, especially for chalk pastels. It also fixes watercolor layers so you can add more layers of watercolor without reactivating the ones below.
During my time in art school I made myself a light box, which is pretty much a budget light table, so I could trace my art when I was working between mediums. It’s super cheap and easy to make and all you need is two things: a clear box & some stick-on lights. For the box you can pretty much find them at any store where they sell those clear plastic store bins. You can buy whatever size you like, but I bought one that was a medium size so that I could an 8.5x11 paper on it. Then go to your local hardware store, or the lighting section at your local Target or Walmart, and buy yourself a set of pressable lights that you can stick to surfaces. Usually people buy these kinda of lights to stick to walls in their homes, so they’re fairly easy to come across if you look around. I bought mine from Home Depot for like $15. The ones I like are the ones that can stick to things and are turned on and off by pressing down on them. Though I’ve also seen versions of these lights that come with a remote to turn them on and off. Either way, get what you like more and then all you gotta do is stick the lights in the box, turn em on, put the lid on the box, and there you go! Now you’ve got a light box that only cost you like $20 to make and is fairly easy to store :D
Prismacolor’s Colorless blender is also pretty good. But still I get the special blending skills of the white pencil. Nothing compares. And you’re right, it’s specifically Prismacolor brand. It’s magic.
Was going to comment the same things but saw yours. I'd add in, from my own experience that the white prismacolor is good for blending lights while the colorless blender is good for darks and shadows, I've found it makes them even darker
@@yesafied video was posted 4 mins ago when I commented....so probably he didn't watched it. Anyways that was not something that serious! U are over reacting 🙄
I am 63 and just started painting with acrylics. I’ve been a frustrated artist my whole life and have tried it all. Painting seems to be my best choice. That said, I’m SO GLAD I watched your videos. Such great information for someone just starting out without access to other painters close by! Thank you ever so much!! Your artistic ability is by fair the best I’ve seen!! You rock!😘
As an intermediate artist, I only suggest to stay determined... and for an art hack, if your medium is coloured pencils don't be afraid to do an underpainting of watercolor, markers, pastels, etc. At first it would be hard but with time you'll get habitual and it's super timesaving and effective. Hope it helps... 😊
I've been using pastels in my college art class and I will say hairspray works just fine for things in your sketchbooks but once you're doing a big piece with lots of detail and layers you'll wanna invest in actual fixative. I'm super cheap and I love saving money, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and invest in the good stuff. You're not just spending money, you're investing in the quality of your artwork!
Or just add multiple layers of hair spray. My school has an entire shelf filled with hairspray cans in one of the art supply closets because we use it so often 😅
Something I recently discovered while trying to paint one of those block letters from Walmart. It's made of pressed wood, so the edges have some gaps and grooves that remain even after sanding. At first, the paint (I was using acrylic) would just seep into the gaps, so I mixed it with Mod Podge glue and sealer. You could also use paintable wood putty around the edges first, but Mod Podge is a LOT cheaper and more versatile.
I use this art hack specially for mural painting(I’m sure you can use it on other stuff), but if you mix white acrylic gesso into cheap acrylic paint(like 50 cent apple barrel paint) it makes it similar to thick body paint for WAY cheaper. Makes you use a lot less paint and it drys slower. Been using this trick for awhile now and has not let me down. (Has saved me fortunes on buying thick body paint)
If the paper rips whenever you peel off the washi tape, this is a tip for you :) Before placing the tape on the paper you plan to mask off, lightly place the tape on your pants or other clothing to pick up some of the fuzz on the clothing. This takes away some of the stickiness while also having enough to stick onto the paper. Even placing the tape on your arm will pick up some of the oils that will also prevent the tape from ripping the paper. Be careful not to do this too much to the tape or it won’t stick to the paper very well. I don’t know the original source of this tip, but it is not my tip, I just want to share it to those who might need it! Hope this helps some of y’all :)
Bad thing about washi tape is that some are just decorative, and have little stickiness to begin with... so it depends on the brand whether it would keep the paper from buckling.
Paper ripping can also be minimized to a great extent if you pull the tape sideways than up, if that makes sense. It would be pulling it parallel to the plane of the paper, not perpendicular, but idk if I made it more or less complicated with this description.
Art tips I find useful, even though they are already known If the tip of the color pencil gets blunt but you don't want to sharpen it because there's still a lot left, use sanded paper and it gets pointy again. Whenever I do that with my charcoals or graphite I save the powder in a container and I can use it to tone paper for a future drawing. With the same clear gesso ( mine is liquitex): If you want to tone your canvas but you have to prime it first, mix gesso with acrylic paint and you can choose whatever color base you want and prime at the same time. Using clear gesso makes any paper into a friendly surface for sofpastels You can practice oilpaint in any paper if you prime it with gesso first.
I have used the crayon coloring hack since the late 80's. It really does make the color look smooth and saturated. Just make sure that when you get to the outline, to scrap in towards the colored area. I always used a paperclip to scrape with.
Tip : if your paint brush (dosen’t matter big or small) if it’s frizzy then just dip it in hot/boiling water works like a charm and also gets paint off your brush just a bit faster! 💕
Thank you! Sometimes when I use my brushes then clean in acetone I swear my brushes look like the hair of a troll doll! I didn't know how to get my bristles back into looking like a paint brush instead of a troll doll with a bad hair day. So thank you for this tip.
If you’re going to use corn starch to make acrylic paint more opaque, you need to use distilled water or mold will form over time. In general when crafting, use distilled water (except when cleaning brushes).
Digital art hack: instead of using the 'blur' tool to blend, use an airbrush brush to blend. Keep overlapping it with both the two colours you are blending. I think it looks much better this way and feels like you are actually doing something because sometimes the blur tool feels like you are doing nothing
This hack works. Had done this hack myself too. Used to do the blur tool as well too. And same result as said comment. And it works in many or not if all of the blending I digitally do. Looks smooth. Beginner so ai am not sure of another word for smooth in this case. But it depends on the particle size too for the air brush settings. Some digital airbrushes tend to use square like dots instead of small dots. Therefore, sometime you have to check for size and pressure of the software's air brush.
(Older viewer. Current teacher, & all around old school 'student', here). Lol. I've got a few things I want to throw out to you. 1) SUGGESTION for a future video: For this idea you might have to literally talk to older members of your family like grandparents or maybe great aunts or great uncles I'd love to see you do a video where you show for your current younger audience today some of the old time art tricks, tips and lessons that used to be taught in decades past, in school. Maybe an art technique or an art method that might have been done back in the 60s, 70s or 80s. It might be really fun for people to see some of the various types of art techniques and art lessons that were once taught. Matter of fact to jump-start you on the project I'll give you one. When I was in school I'd say maybe around 3rd or 4th grade, I can distinctly remember there being some type of an art lesson that we did where what we would do is we would take something hard or something that had a straight edge like the inside blade of a pair of scissors. What we would do is we would carefully peel off maybe about a quarter inch of the top rim of the Crayola wrapper paper.Then what we would do is literally shave off multiple layers of the crayola. We would put it on a piece of paper. We would then cover it w/ (I think parchment paper). Then if I'm not mistaken we would use an iron or we would get some other type of a heating element and we would run it across the paper to basically melt the crayon onto the paper, or might even have been a canvas I can't remember which. It's been so many years.Again I do distinctly remember a crafting project where you shave off Crayola bits and then you put a piece of paper down and then on top of the paper you run a hot iron or some other heating element. 2) QUESTION: For just as much and as well as the cornstarch technique worked to kind of jump-start the fluidity of the acrylic paint, I want to know what your thoughts and ideas are on the so-called 'oil-based' acrylic paint medium? Personally it's always sounded like a bit of an oxymoron to me you know in other words like something that shouldn't even be possibly. Obviously oil and water don't mix. So how is it that an oil-based element could survive within the watery environment of an acrylic? Have you ever tried that type of paint, before? What are your thoughts on it? Thanks for your consideration of the above.
Have been an artist for 50+ years, not full-time, but regularly throughout the years. This is the first time I’ve watched a TH-cam video you made. Thanks for the tips! I wish I knew some of these back in the day!
It is strange, be ause my dad has been an artist for a little longer than you and I find most of these hacks to be common sense... I guess I have just been taking what I have learnt from him for granted.
take a picture of your sketch and use any basic editing application to mirror it or just hold a mirror up to your sketch before you start rendering, it'll help you see parts that might look strange or out of proportion, you can keep looking at the mirror to make sure your corrections worked until you're happy with it, I swear it's helped me so much with noticing lopsided eyes or weird composition :3
hi Rae! regarding trick with acetone and acrlic paint: be carefull when using this trick on cheap brushes because those sometimes have brisletles glued with glue that is disolvalbe by acetone (may have happened to me few times ^^'). what you can use instead is rubbing alcochol or even ethanol. it's not as fast as acetone but will do the trick
Exactly... I paint on resin so this kind of hack is standard stuff. But sometimes you (i do!) sometimes forget that everyday stuff in one hobby translates well into other hobbies / mediums
For watercolor, do all your line art/drafting with watercolor pencils! Make sure you have similar colors to what you need in the finished painting and the line art disappears, no erasing.
The hack using neon paint to lighten a shade singlehandedly made me smash that like button. . . The cornstarch trick had me hovering over the button though!
Regarding the tracing the outline trick, I've always done something similar by rubbing a pencil across the back instead of chalk. But I recently found graphite powder. Just a VERY TINY PORTION of that stuff rubbed all over the back does the same trick.
For all you digital artists out there: If you wanna create a patterned cloth like plaid, paisley, etc but you don't wanna deal with the headache of drawing it to align with the folds here's what you do: draw whatever pattern you're using flat (or use an image or brush texture). adjust it to be a bit bigger than the area that you want to cover on all sides. Then use a liquify tool or something similar to make it conform to the shape of the drawing underneath. I use Procreate and I use a mixture of the push, pinch, and expand tools for the best outcome. Then all you do is erase the excess, add your shading, and you're done! This also works well for t shirt graphics, writing on a banner, tattoos, anything you can think of! I've never seen this hack anywhere else and it's saved me sooo much time and frustration
Art gloves can be used for more than just digital art. I use them when I ink, with graphite and with charcoal. It helps with smudging and allows your hand to glide nicer, plus it's archival because you don't get your skin oils on your work. You don't need to buy the wacom ones and infact, I find those really uncomfortable and too thick. Huion has multipacks for the cost of just one wacom glove and they're very comfortable (plus you can get one with a skeleton hand!).
Just found your channel & as I was watching, you mentioned soaking your paint brushes in acetone to dissolve the paint. I’ve never tried that, but I did want to share a tip- It’s about how to keep the tips of your brushes from not curling at the tip- the answer? Never leave them sitting in your water jar-it’s a rule here! 😊 So, because of this, another “hack” I thought of when cleaning brushes is to use an empty Wet Ones container to suspend your brush into the cleaner for soaking. Push your brush handle thru the inside of lid, make sure it’s not going to touch bottom, add your cleaner & snap lid in place. Works great! 👍🏻😊
For miniature painting: disposable liquid eyeliner brushes are excellent detail brushes. They’re super handy and you can buy them in bulk really easily. Hopping back to the paint and cornstarch hack, add a larger amount of cornstarch to your cheap paint to create a thick paint that will hold shape and/or create texture for bases. Way cheaper than buying texture paints
1. That chalk hack also works with graphite. I recommend 2B graphite pencils or soft graphite sticks. But HB and medium work too. 2. You can clean your blending stump with sandpaper as well. Definitely easier than cleaning off on erasers. 3. Complementary colors for shadows/ darker colors. I prefer watercolors so, this works at least for watercolors. _Purple on yellows give beautiful darker yellows. Green with red, gorgeous darker greens. A tiny bit of red on blue and vice versa give darker blues and reds. Burnt sienna (or yellower browns) with a bit of cobalt or ultramarine blue give a very neutral brown._ 4. Okay, this is a bit complicated, I think but well worth knowing for vibrant colors. Learn to identify your cool and warm hues. So, basically, cooler reds (more pinkish) have a blue undertone while warmer reds (more orangeish) have yellow undertones. Warmer yellows (orangeish yellows) have red undertones while cooler yellows (bright, lemon yellows) have greenish undertones. Warmer blues (cobalt, ultramarine blues) have reddish undertones while cooler blues (prussian, maybe cerulean) have greenish undertones. *Note: all three primaries mixed produce blacks or browns.* So, the key to vibrant colors is to not mix colors that contain all three primaries, even if it is in trace amount. So, for example, don't mix warmer reds with blues (red + yellow undertone & blue has all three primaries) or warmer yellows with blues (yellow + red undertones & blue). And the same goes for all colors (make sure to not mix colors with all three primaries) if you want vibrant colors and the opposite if you want duller (and sometimes darker) colors. Of course, self experimentation with the amount of pigment you use and all that matters too, but learning this helped me _A TON_ to figure out color mixing and I hope it helps you too.
When I used crayons as a kid, I would always employ that color-on-scrape-off technique. I guess i never really considered it an art hack! So here's another one of a similar vein: Color with a colored pencil, then erase for a nice fade effect. You can recolor over it with another color too, if you don't want a heavy saturation in your mix.
I did too, because I just hated the way crayon looked. I also used to put the tip of the crayon in melted candle and apply to paper (when I could get away with it---not all adults were super thrilled with my little trick)
I love adding interesting texture with coarse sea salt! I have no idea if the sodium is going to degrade the paint over time but I have some I did 4+ years ago that still look identical to when I finished them, no warping and sometimes a tiny bit of texture can upgrade a painting majorly. liquitex makes a medium that does the same effect but table salt is cheap and we all have it around but kosher or sea salt is best
The salt in acrylic paint is a nice hack. Getting a nice matte finish mixing salt water solution to the color. Too much looks whitish or cloudy but great use of effect.
In my broke artist days I couldn't afford sketchbooks (and I couldn't ask my parents for more because I filled them up so fast), so my life hack is that I learned how to make my own with just cardboard, printer paper, and twine. No sewing needed! You just fold your paper & cardboard in half, wrap the twine around the spine of your cover, and slide your paper in. It works surprisingly well :)
Art hack: I saw a girl using white crayon as a masking fluid for watercolour.And after painting ,she chiped it up and was left pretty white.I found it cool cause usually masking fluids are more expensive than crayons.But they do have more preccision i guess .
Yeah wax repeals water from soaking in. Just can’t paint over it after removing without some of that left wax showing through the color. Did it with a project and its amazing.
rubber cement alao works as a much cheaper alternative to masking fluid for watercolors or inks… The upside of it over a wax resist is that when you rub it off the surface is still workable😄
This is the first time I've seen an art hack video that contained actual useful information of things I honestly did not know before!! Thank you so very much for all of these!!
If you're a lefty and use spiral Sketchbooks: put the spiral on the right. Go back to front like a Manga. It helps a LOT. It is so much more comfortable and lets you flow so much easier. Happy drawing all ❤️
*ART HACK✏* When drawing fine hairs or fur, indent the paper with an empty pen or with an indenting stylus to preserve the highlights!😊 The highlights STAY white even if u layer on top!😁 This is a life-saver for artists that draw realistically that HATE drawing little highlights🖊 I hope this helps🎇
That is my super art hack for color pencils 😁 I once textured an entire drawing with a stylus before adding any pencil color... my kids thought I had gone crazy working so hard on an invisible drawing 😂
11:20 I used to love the white prismacolor pencils, but I learned a couple years ago that you can use a tiny bit of vaseline on a brush to blend your colored pencils instead and I've never gone back!
If you want a smooth finish with a crayon, you can actually "prime" your paper with a layer of wax before you start drawing. Just take the white crayon or some uncolored paraffin wax and lay down a thin layer on your paper. I don't know about other brands, but Crayola will layer beautifully once it has some wax under it.
My art hack is a projector facing downwards onto the table or your canvas. I use this to enlarge my photos so I can paint them. I originally bought projector to project sewing patterns but gets used more for painting. When you project the picture just lightly pencil the main outlines & detailed areas LOVE THIS HACK
Great tip on the markers and alcohol. You can also use rubbing alcohol and a Q-tip for blending markers if your blender is going dry or you don't have one. Also, for those of us that do commissions at conventions, a small bottle of hand sanitizer will also work for the drying or dying marker as well.
For the markers, you can pull out the core with tweezers and reverse it. Or, out the whole marker in the bottle,let it sit,then spray. Makes a fun unique pattern.
My art teacher always told us the cheaper the better 😂 I have to agree - the fancy ones that don’t make your hair like steel are not the best at protecting artwork!
I never even knew there was a fixative until I got older and saw it..... always used hair spray on finished chalk work and it think AquaNet was only a $1 😆
you can also use crayons on top of colored pencils for smooth texture or to help with blending or dimension edit: i for dimension i mean like - if you’re coloring water and you want it to also have like a greenish hue to it - lightly go over with a crayon -
Here’s an art hack I know: if you’re scanning in your traditional lined artwork, draw the sketch underneath with an erasable light blue pencil, then do the line art, before scanning it in. That way, you can easily edit out any lines left over from your sketch in Photoshop or your drawing program of choice on your computer so that the scanned image just shows the line art and not the underlying sketch! This is because light blue is a “non-photo blue”, meaning it isn’t picked up by copiers/scanners, and anything that is picked up is easier to edit out digitally!
Recently I found some of my old paint brushes and no matter how much I cleaned them the old acrylic paint was not coming off. At last I left the paintbrushes in petrol overnight and next day i washed them with soap and now they work like a charm!
Rubbing alcohol was life changing when I learned I could use it with polymer clay. It can help smooth clay, remove colors that smeared into another, and blending clay. I literally use it with every project I start! Another tip, don't leave unbaked polymer clay on plastic surfaces, it'll melt it (learnt the hard way!)
Rubbing alcohol also cleans your hands after you're done sculpting in polymer clay! (Some say that rubbing alcohol dries out your skin but unless you already have very dry skin, I don't see why it's an issue. Also while mineral oil can remove polyclay residue too, it's messy. So you gotta wash your hands afterwards--which defeats the purpose)
I buy alcohol in large bottles Walmart or CVS with coupon and turn to it for many removals first before I start with the more toxic stuff if necessary.
Random little thing I've picked up, when blending pencil/graphite, you can use a glasses cleaner over your finger. It works really well to get a smooth finish, and your finger won't get covered in graphite.
Here's one I learned when I was a nail artist. I just sort of figured it out. Use alcohol to remove acrylic paint on just about anything including clothing. The only caveat is that if the acrylic paint is completely set up, you won't be able to remove it completely and you'll need acetone. But in the case of doing nails, if you are doing some art you first any topcoat and let it dry and then do the art over the topcoat then topcoat again. By doing that, if you mess up, you just wipe it off with alcohol and viola! You are all set to go again. Don't forget to topcoat over your masterpiece when you're done. And for the rest of is artists, I always keep rubbing alcohol on the table when I'm painting with acrylic. It helps with clean up and any mistakes. If your brushes are getting a little yucky, soak them for a few minutes and they'll come clean. And because alcohol is drying, if your brushes start getting a bit dry, just give them a little conditioning with hair conditioner or oil. But only use a bit and remember to wash it out before you use it again. I also train my brushes with hair spray.
You can also take old, dried out Crayola markers - soak the same color in a container. ALL the ink will leach out and you get watercolor paint. Usually it's very weak but it great for beginners to do broad washes for backgrounds. I teach elementary art and I never throw markers away until I get the last bit of color out. Then I let my 1st graders have at it.
Love the chalk on back to transfer a design....back in my high school days when we didn't have computers and had to learn typing, you had carbon paper to make duplicates. When I was doing art with my children when they were small we would use carbon paper to transfer designs. I have just about used up all the old carbon paper I have been hoarding. Thanks! My one regret in life is that I never learned to draw when I was young, but in my empty nest retirement years am trying to learn.
@@impalamama7302 You're mistaken. They do still make. I have a stash of it. You'll find it in an art store most likely. I use it when I do a muralvto transfer my design that alive drawn in large newsprint paper.
Love the vid! New subscriber now. One lil hack I learnt and use is ripping up toilet paper and mixing in white glue (pva). Leave it to soak a few minutes. Then give it a good stir (or mix with hand, dependent on thickness wanted) to basically shred the wet paper, and then use it as a clay of sorts. Personally, I change foam heads into “monsters” using this technique. It sticks to the foam much better than clay. It also dries really hard.
@@creatiVeronica actually, it is a technique that Jazza swears by for great paper mache results! -- for longer protection, brush the last coat with thinned-down white (pva) glue.
I do this at Halloween with latex too. last year I got a dollar tree skull and used the technique with a couple of ping pong balls to make a severed zombie head - I have also used it with skin safe latex to create prosthetics or do things like create a false skin layer that can be cut or sewn.
To smoothly remove tape from your surface hold a hairdryer over it for just enough time to warm the tape up. Start pulling the tape off your surface while you hold your hairdryer over the next section of the tape. No paper surface damage!
this also usually works great for removing labels from bottles or jars you want to save but don't want the commercial look on them. I remove all labels from everything as much as possible. Who wants to look at a ups code?
How did I JUST now find you?!? You're amazing! Your energy and attitude are so magnetic, just love it!! I LOVE art, know a lot of hacks myself and these are fantastic! One hack I use is the make up brush one, but also a pumice stone can add really interesting texture😊
I got one for digital and one for pencil sketching • if your line art looks good untill you hide the sketch then put your sketch at 15%< opacity then you could see the lines your putting down better (bonus: you will never draw on the wrong layer again as your lines on the sketch later will be really light alerting you that your on the wrong layer) • the most useful pencils for sketching are 2B, 6B, 9B are most recommended, so don't waste your money on a whole set
A warning for anyone using hairspray: It will likely yellow over time! If it's just your sketchbook and you're fine with it yellowing, don't worry about it, but if it's a very precious piece of art, you might want to splurge on a can of the more expensive fixative if you can!!
@@sometimessnarky1642 Sorry to hear that! Maybe some white watercolor or white ink would help to bring the paper closer to it's original hue? If you do buy a fixative, I wouldn't worry too much about the price - I bought a can of it in 2019 and still use it to this day, so one can will definitely last you a long time!!
When I paint with acrylics… For clouds… clothes pin & cotton… You can form the cotton to whatever size you like. Put one end in the clothes pin (helps keep you clean) and dab, dab on that FaBu cloud. Don’t 4get to dab the shading on very lightly. 🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼 Gurly, so glad I came across your art hacks. Like when I blend chalks, I use a plastic or non latex glove 🧤 to blend & keep my hand clean.
Art hack: (Great for comic and manga artists) You can dilute your "Water proof" ink with water to create permanent tones instead of buying tone sheets. Takes practice but it's like hybrid watercolor. But if you like the look of tone paper by all means go for it!
For brighter, more vivid color without adding white, put down a layer of pure white first and then glaze over with the color thinned with glazing medium. Looks neon & works especially well for painting something like lemons.
I made part two to this! : th-cam.com/video/tp-mfLo7fWI/w-d-xo.html
Tip 1:
Use d-Limonene instead of acetone for cleaning your acrylics. d-Limonene is made from orange peel extract and is what Styrofoam recyclers started using instead of Acetone. Why it's better is one you get the same cleaning, two it's not a harsh toxic chemical (Your lungs and eyes will thank you) , three you have a nice orange / citrus smell, and four it's organic so you can dispose of it any way you want.
Tips 2:
Draw in little circles instead of lines when filling in an area to color it. It blends much better and the intensity of color can be changed based on pressure or number of layers drawn.
Turn the water off please 🙏 while you wash then turn it on again to rinse. Watching water💧👀 just spill on makes me want to close it so badly. :)
These are fantastic tips!
@@happysunnyrain1531 I always do!
I’m so excited to watch this pt.2!
For digital artists! You might look at layer options and wonder what the heck is a vector layer. A vector layer is a layer that, when the lines on that layer are resized, keeps the lines smooth! So no more fuzziness when you make your drawing bigger or smaller :D
Omg! Bestie you just saved my life!
OH MY GAWD!!! THANK YOU O LAWD! YOU HAVE ENLIGHTENED MY LIFE!!!! (ok but seriously tysm)
Is this feature on procreate?
O.M.G. THANK YOU. I had no idea!!
YOOO THIS IS SUCH A HUGE ISSUE FOR ME, THANK YOU
Art tip: chalk pastels (especially the lighter shades) get dirty with the dust of the other colors…put cornmeal in a ziplock, toss in your dirty pastels and shake the bag. Your pastels come out nice and clean again! And the best part is you can just zip up the cornmeal bag and keep it with your pastels to use over and over again. I have had my sandwich bag of cornmeal for years and it looks too dirty to clean anything but I tell you at it’s still doing the trick.
Thank you
That's brilliant.
GENIUS!
Thanks I’m just trying to learn about all this
What is a cornmeal bag ?
For watercolor artists, if you wanna paint clouds, make the whole sky a wash of the color you want it (aka blues or sunset colors) and make sure it is a lot of water and the paper is wet. After you let the pain soak in for like 20 seconds use a towel you cramped up to take off some of the paint in some areas. You will be left with beautiful white spots that resemble clouds. Adding gray in some areas over that spot can help it become more life like. Hope this helps other struggling artists like it did for me!
thank you so much for this tip! A few days ago i was struggling with the clouds in a painting, but now i'll re-do it, using this art hack :D
I can Never draw them!! Thank you so so much!!
For another texture of cloud, you can use the ripped edge of spare watercolor paper to remove the paint
Thank you, I have tried paper towels for removing paint as well. Sea sponges, etc. I will be trying this method out again, seeing how I can change up the cumples and wrinkles.
There's a reason Wite Out works so well as a white paint. The inventor of the original brand Liquid Paper, Bette Nesmith Graham, was a secretary who was also an artist. She realized she could use white paint to fix typing mistakes in her secretarial job and came up with her own formula for the correction fluid. I remember in school Liquid Paper was an absolute must-have school supply! So fun to see it come full circle as an artist supply as well!
And her son Michael was one of The Monkees. :)
I got into The Monkees when the show was on MTV back in the 80s. My friends and I were floored when we learned that Mike Nesmith's mother invented Liquid Paper.
wite out/liquid paper is banned in our school and if our teachers see us use it, we lose points 😳
@@Vanilla644 A lot of kids huff it. When I was in junior high, it was up to the individual teachers if we could use it or not. One of our science teachers caught on and would only let us use it at his desk. I don't think we could use it in high school.
@@gracefulannie-grcflannie- I've always been a Monkees fan - that was how I found out about its origins too! I was so excited when we found out the Monkees were going to be on MTV. My family bought our very first VCR just so I could stay up and record every episode. 😍
When you first open a tube of paint, swipe the threads of the cap with a bit of petroleum jelly or wax to help prevent dried paint getting all up in there and making the cap nigh impossible to remove without mangling the tube. Reapply whenever you feel it's wearing thin.
That's pretty ingenious!
@@charliebyerly3931 thnx
That’s so smart
@@charliebyerly3931 ... thank you. Was just going ask. Hate when my E6000 gets messy.
@@charlirobinson1548 u got that right. Also be careful when purchasing e6000 Joannes often runs out but they still have black or white and I made the mistake of buying black for shoe repair on a pastel shoe and did not realize it until it had already made a mess. Just sayin!
I only paint with makeup brushes! I discovered this a few years ago after I had a party (alcohol was involved) and my friends got into my paint and brushes and left them out to crust all night and they were kinda done for. I wanted to paint something that week and was like dammit! But realized I had a huge cabinet full of unused makeup brushes and was like “Damn, why hadn’t I thought to use these before?” They are so much smoother and more refined than most artist brushes for the price. When you go to buy a high quality artist brush they can get insanely expensive. You can get a pack of Walgreens brand makeup brushes in all different sizes and shapes and they paint like a dream.
Hi
GENIUS
Tysm 🎉
True.
Crusted paintbrushes can be saved if it's only been a few days. Coat the bristles in linseed oil and let them sit for 24 hours or so. Then wash them with a solid brush cleaner. There's no need to go spend more money even if it's cheap stuff. You're better off just reviving the brushes, IMHO.
My art hack ✏️: Whenever doing drawings with coloured pencils, use a base like paints, markers etc. which will make the process MUCH quicker. You will be able to cover large areas in little time and after that you can use coloured pencils to add details. If you use only coloured pencils, you will take a lot of time and finish through your pencil fairly quickly. Hope this helps :)
Yesss I do that all the time ✏
@@amcvart9839 I actually discovered this a few months ago when I was watching a fellow art TH-camr ‘Temi Danso Art’
Thanks for the tip
Paint as in watercolor paint right? Because I would imagine with acrylic paint the pencil will just scrape it off but maybe there's something I don't know
it's easier to blend when there's not something already there
For photographing your artwork, do not shoot under bright sunlight; wait for a slightly overcast day, so that there is a thin layer of cloud to diffuse the sunlight. Make certain the the sun is at one side of your artwork, and place a reflector ( a sheet of white poster board or foam core makes a really effective and really inexpensive reflector ) on the other side. You will get a very even lighting effect with no highlights or shadows.
and when you put a piece of white paper under your artwork, sticking out a bit, you can adjust the colours of your photo refering to that white bit of paper on your computer, then crop the photo
@@Lulisette The trick I do, is I keep a piece of white cardboard in my camera bag, and use it to manually calibrate the white balance on the camera. I like your tip, as it could be used to confirm how accurate the WB correction was!
Thank you for that.
I've found that regular rubbing alcohol removes even dry acrylic paint from your paint brush.i got little ones that always let the paint dry on my brushes
Hand sanitizer is awesome and it conditions the brushes too
My art tip: the best way to learn/ practise mixing colors is to pick out ONLY red, yellow, blue and white paint and then mix all the colors you need for your piece YOURSELF. Including black. Even if you own the exact color you need - forget it and make it yourself. Fr it's such a helpful challenge.
Edit: as the comments pointed out - yes, the primary subtractive colors (cyan, magenta, yellow) would be better for this challenge. If you can, use these three colors (and white). However if you don't own cyan or magenta paint (almost nobody did at the school we learnt this challenge at), just use red and blue instead. Trust me it still works wonders.
how do you even make black 💀
@@hearts4marzz when doing it often enough it will almost go automaticly, but for starters I'd say make a slightly red brown and a slightly blue purple and blend them together. After than you can experience with adding little bits of colour and see what works best. Make sure to make quite a lot so that you won't have to remake that color. And oh, I see that most people hesititate using yellow cause blue and red look darker, but yellow is absolute a must.
@@yoshianimations6171 ok thanks :)
@@hearts4marzz np ^^
@@hearts4marzz you can make it using ultramarine blue mixed with raw umber or burnt sienna
I got so many gems from this video! Never thought to use makeup brushes for blending 😅🔥
Firstttt
Bro it’s LIFE CHANGING
Biggest fan
I’m here before this blows up
@@Vlogs-With-Mia same!
I've never heard of anyone doing this...but I tell every artist I meet. I ALWAYS flip my drawing or painting around (through the entore process) and and look at it in a mirror. You can spot your mistakes with proportion, symmetry, weird white space...I do it with all of my work and I can't even express how helpful it is. Especially, when you're like "I know something isn't right...but what?"
I learned this in my first drawing class and it's an invaluable step! And I'll squint when I look at the reflection--it really helps me to see the values of my colors.
I used to teach art in school. I kept an oversized mirror in the back of my classroom and taught, even 3rd graders how to use it. They made my heart sing when they would actually use it!
Yeah, I have been doing that too, for 30 years! And I will correct shading and colours by lying both the original and the drawing upside down.
My art tip: Not all colors have the same tonal value. It’s part of the reason red and green look extremely similar to some people. It helps to occasionally snap a photo of your artwork and edit out the saturation of your colors (y’know grayscale) and seeing the tonal contrast of your piece. It can help to organize your most saturated paints in tonal order.
Also, darkening yellow with black can create a muddy green color. Darken with brown instead.
Purple is better in my opinion. At least with watercolors, which is my preferred medium. I think it's because purple is opposite to yellow on the color wheel.
If red and green look EXTREMELY similar to you, you might be color blind
This is a trick that user interface designers use to make their design colorblind friendly
There are glasses and clip ons to correct colorblindness. $99. in some cases.
Get a colour blindness test and let us know if we r “hue/shade deaf”
My art hack: so during the whole process of drawing anything you should always flip the artwork or look at it through a mirror so you can check if you got the proportions and perspectives right. If it looks wonky and weird you'll know which part you messed up and can fix it quickly. It works because we get used to seeing the work so much we overlook the mistakes and it becomes apparent when it's flipped.( Not upside down like mirror view flipped) i don't know if this can be called an art hack but sure did help me a lot when I was first starting out and didn't know much about perspectives and proportions.
I do this too!
I do this too, with both traditional art and digital. Way back when it was mentioned in a "how to draw" book I owned, using a window or lightbox.
you always see digital artists flipping their canvas but somehow it never occurred to me to use a mirror to do the same thing traditionally lol! good tip!!
This is totally a traditional technique and I still forget! It's really good. The other one is to stand far away from it, especially if you are painting large.
Taking a picture also works for this
I also love my colored pencils, my preferred brand is prismacolors also. I completely agree with the white being the best for blending anything!! I’ve even used it to blend marker and pencils or even gel pens. I’ll use my pencils till there is nothing left which leads me to another hack for those who can’t afford to get the premium art supplies like me. When my pencils are too short I simply stick them into a soda straw. I cut them down to a length that will hold 2 pencils (1 on each side’. 😊
Okay that’s a great hack
🤩genius!!! Thankyou❣️low budget single mom here😭
How do you use the straws with the pensils in them ??
Cool. I seem to love certain pencils, they get short and have to be replaced too soon, and I never like the new ones as well. Ho-hum. Good idea 💡 though.
🤯🤯
It is usually impossible to color a double sided coloring book with alcohol markers.
Art hack:
Get clear gesso and spread with a sponge on the part of the paper you want to color let it dry for around ten minutes. The print of your marker will not go on to the other side of the page.
It works like magic. (◕ᴗ◕✿)
Love u!!!!
Bestie- I want to give a hug so virtual hug
Oh my gosh. This is genius! 😩🙏❤️
Life changing!!! I have so many books I want to work in but couldn’t bare to do it. Yay!!!
I saw a TH-cam video on that.. But it made the surface uneven and spoilt the marker tips. Can you please suggest what to apply the gesso with to get a smooth surface!
I love that at almost 2mil followers, her biggest videos at near 7mil views, she just reviewed colored pencils over $1k, but so many of these hacks are perfect for us broke artists. Rae never forgets her broke Dollar Tree Art days and I love her for that because that’s where I’m still at in my art journey.
I'm also a Dollar Tree artist! I agree, Rae gives me confidence to go and do things! I don't need fancy paper, just a bit of creativity!
I'm also there. I do like dollar tree though. I like to pick up stuff from there. Sometimes stuff is not quality but sometimes they hit it out of the park . I got a rubber mallet there. I got glass pens there. And it came with a small container of ink. I know rae uses the poster board paper for making quality stuff, but sometimes I just take a piece and i doodle it with a dollar free sharpie. I cut some of my paper post card size since i draw small.
@@nickorange4881 Dollar General is another good store for inexpensive but ok art stuff. I have a couple of little sketchbooks I carry with me everywhere that I got from there. Good for practice.
@@mornasev yes. I got a mini sketchbook there that i plan to put in my bag. After I'm done with my current mini sketchbook. It's so Convenient to have that size. Much better than the big spiral i had that's the size of about printer paper but is heavy. I wanted to draw regularly but it was heavy and such a pain to bring around.
@@nickorange4881did you mean to say dollar free 😅😂😂
Please dont ask me why that's so funny. Its an inside joke. With myself. Im gonna start using that though. Dollar free all day. They BOGO a lot more than they know.
Also a perspective/landscape (idk what to describe it as) hack, when drawing a scene with multiple figures, have each figures eyeline line up with the horizon line. This will prevent different figures from looking like they’re floating or sinking, and keeps everything on the same level. (Of course further distanced subjects will be smaller compared to closer ones, but they should still line up with the horizon line!)
Another great spot for good lighting for smaller objects is inside the fridge! I’ve been into nail art for many years and lots of us take hand and swatch pics in the fridge. You can put colored paper or fabric in there for a background. It’s better than most light boxes. 😊
*me:* **peacefully taking a 278th picture in the fridge**
*dad:* What are you doing? It's cold there
Omg thank you! I have a really crappy camera and really poor lighting in my apartment. I have to take so many pictures of my art and then edit it slightly to make it even look close to how it actually looks in person lol. This will help me so much! ❤
I love the ingenuity of this and of all the commenters. Isn't sharing great? Wouldn't the world be so much a greater place if we all shared freely? Thanx for this not only for the useful hack but for your free floating inventiveness and willingness to take the time to share. Blessings!
The best art advice that has stuck with me for years was from Neil on "Art Attack" (a tv series geared towards kids - I was a kid at the time) is this: Draw what you see, not what you think you see. It's very "basic" advice and may come automatically to a lot of people, but it has always stuck with me.
Dude! I'm sixty years old and I STILL watch reruns of Neil Buchanan's "Art Attack!" You've got to keep that childlike sense of wonder and discovery.
I was taught to draw the shadows.
AAAAAAAAH, I LOVED THAT SHOW SO MUCH 😂
Those salt drawings always shook me to my core. 🙏 He inspired so many of us!
@@crystaldawn2708 Those were my favourite too 😂😍
The technique I use for transferring a reference image onto another sheet of paper, is to place them both up against a window, and use it like a
light table.
What I do to get clean edges with masking, is to use electrical tape instead of masking tape. Because it's non-porous, it can't absorb paint
that would lead to bleeding. Be careful when you overlap it, so that you have tiny gaps where it crosses another piece of tape.
When I used to do house painting, I would save money on trim brushes by buying the cheapest one they had at the dollar store, then I'd use a
beard trimmer to clean up the ends of the bristles, so that I could nice tight cut lines.
If you use OLFA or X-Acto knives a lot, learn how to sharpen and hone them! Blades can now last months or even years. I only replace them when they break now.
My art hack:
I was once recommended by an art friend to put a sponge (cut to the shape of the cup) at the bottom of the paintbrush water to gently wash the brushes on. I was surprised how well it worked and I've been using the trick ever since.
I have also used soft makeup scrubbers at the bottom for the same trick!😊
I used a makeup brush cleaner pad/mat from the dollar store and cut it to fit the base of my cup
I just tried something similar last night with a silicone dish scrubber (if only it worked better for its intended purpose).
This is genius
Wire/copper sponges work better for this
One hack I discovered recently:
Whenever you are tracing a drawing on another piece of paper pin it together with bobby pins. It is so much more convenient than using tape because you don't risk ripping the paper.
Hope that helps ❤️
THANK YOU!
You can use white Blu-Tack too! Pop tiny bits around the border of the paper to hold it in place!
That's a great one
Don't trace drawings
thats really helpful, thx
Im on an acrylic paint forum for beginners on FB and a lady there told us to use Vit E oil or olive oil and add a little to our acrylic paint and then it would act more like an oil paint and would blend better, dry slower and also bring out the color more. She said she uses it just for certain areas. She said her aunt did this for 40 years and was a great artist. I tried the Vit E and found it too thick and sticky, so then switched to olive oil and it really is amazing!
I've mixed acrylic with oil paint and it works really great. It was an experiment when I ran put of oils in a few colors
🎨 🖼
Walnut oil or linseed oil works great as well 🎨
I wonder if castor oil would work ?
Acrylic paint art hack: do you ever miss using layers in digital art, being able to delete them when you don't like the result? Very high percentage alcohol (like hand sanitizer) will take thin layers of acrylic paint off your canvas, you can easily remove a glaze like this for example. I use a q-tip. And if you wanna make sure you don't remove too much paint underneath, just use any kind of transparent medium, or even a thin coat of vanish before adding a new layer on top of the work you are already happy with. That way the alcohol will definitely not mess it up in case you wanna remove what you paint over it. :)
Lol took me a second to realise you meant varnish and not vanish the stain remover 😂.
@@YoungDymisty Yeah!...If you confuse the two, you'll get pretty much the opposite result.
@@willmfrank 😂 right !
I use mod podge between “layers” to lock the lower layers and make the layer I’m working on “removable”.
Also helpful if you get acrylic paint on somewhere it's not supposed to be! 😳 Like your favorite shirt, furniture etc. I pretty much only do art in "art clothes" now. 😂
The gray canvas works on digital art too! Either program your default "paper" color or make a layer and fill it with 50% gray. It really makes a difference!
FACTS!
I didn't even think of this, thanks!
wait wdym "50% gray"? like the opacity?
@@rinnace I mean, like, right in the middle of black and white.
@@rinnace yes.
Brilliant!! My hack for gelly roll pens that dry out (the black ones are the worst) is hot water soak in a tupperware with lid on, 10-15 minutes, shake firmly, and dip the tip/nib in koh-i-noor rapidograph calligraphy pen cleaner, cap it wet, shake,again and draw a few strokes. Something in that solution cleans up the dried pen. Repeat the process as it may need to work into the tip... Also store the pens flat or horizontal if stacking them in a cosmetic bag. This works for watercolor brush pens, just a dab, not a full soak, whether felt, synthetic, and plastic nibs, roller balls, tech pens, dip ink, spray nozzles, droppers, pipettes, etc. Also, to ride on the crayola watercolor idea, is using highlighters (water based, re-wettable), and mildliners (archival/permanent when dry) nd the like as a base layer(s) that's translucent/transparent/neon-ish to mix colors or provide a wash.
My painting hack : to get a darker shade of any color instead of using black, use just a little amount of the complementary color. Its fricking magic. The most beautiful darks greens just by adding a bit of Magenta or Red.
So my second hack is embrace Magenta, the primary "red" for color mixing. And if you want red, just mix yellow with Magenta, magic.
Woah it actually works
I can confirm that when I figured this out it changed my life. Using complementary colours is now pretty much my go to technique for creating any sort of shadows, cause they seem to blend in way better than black, in multiple mediums
I learned this one in school.
Yes and yes!
I learned this in a class recently. I don't think it's a hack to not use black...it's good color theory
Add paint to spackle (drywall repair paste). It makes a wonderful 3D effect. It can be applied with a pallet knife or put it in a decorating bag to bring flowers or anything else off the canvas or whatever you are painting on.
Yes! And along the same lines, if you are just playing and using cheap products (not worried about archival quality) you can also add a bit of Elmer's/PVA glue to spackle. The added glue changes the texture and makes it less likely to crack, especially if adding cheap craft paint that has less binder and pigment. Knowing both is great, because they have different textures/looks when dried.
It can also crack and fall off, happened to me.
@@milenalanka6509 aw that's disappointing. I hope you could rescue it.
@@AndreaCrisp thats kind of funny because you can make crackle paint using elmers glue also :)
@@milenalanka6509 could you possibly have applied the elmers glue first and then paint over it while it was still wet?
Art hack for helping you learn how to draw portraits. What helped me was learning how to do makeup. Specifically drag and cosplay makeup. It allowed me to figure out dimensions of the face and how they are expressed in a 3-D setting and it was very helpful when I went back to drawing.
Tbh , tracing helped me alot for realism , i don't do realism anymore bc I've combined my brush pen style with gouache , ig it's going pretty good
when painting with acrylic use the dark shades first then build up the highlights and detail :)
That is helpful
And the opposite for watercolors! You preserve your white highlights, and go from light to dark.
Thank u! I have such a hard time with acrylic
2:49 I just tried this art hack out, but I didn't have cornstarch. So I used baby powder instead, and it works great! So if you don't have cornstarch you can use baby powder too❤️
FYI: Baby powder is just cornstarch. It used to be made from talc but since the talc mined to produce baby powder typically also contained asbestos, which causes cancer, companies stopped using it and changed to using cornstarch. Johnson & Johnson has been in court for years trying to defend that fact that they KNEW there was asbestos in their baby powder for years but did nothing about it. Thousands of women have gotten cancer that is directly related to their use of baby powder but Johnson & Johnson trying to hurt them again by working to not have to pay for their huge medical bills. It's really fucked up. 😪
It depends; some baby powders actually are cornstarch (with fragrance added in), while others have a talc base. I don't see any reason why talc wouldn't mix with acrylic, but I don't know if a talc-based powder would work exactly the same way. 😊
Most baby powder is made with cornstarch these days (at least in the US) because talc can be toxic and cause problems if used regularly long-term. That said, yes, read the label.
@@brendaleelydon Oh okay, thanks for letting me know 👍🏾 I didn't know that lmao-
A bit of white gesso works great as well! I know it's pricier but I have a huge tub of it and a much smaller container of cornstarch lol :)
Don't add corn starch to any paint, it will become mouldy because it is organic. If you wish to thicken acrylic paint add chalk powder or gesso, mineral will not become mould fodder in your painted pieces.
Thats a good point, but it depends on the environmental conditions the paint is in. Starch based adhesives (starch and water) have been used for hundreds of years in bookbinding and it's well known that it won't rot unless it gets wet. There are many centuries old books that haven't rotted. Starch in paint should act similarly. I would expect the acrylic binder would make it more resistant as well. What I can't speak to is the effect time will have on the color. Wheat starch adhesives are known to resist yellowing, but corn starch is kind of an unknown.
I have items made from cornstarch "clay" painted with acrylic that are better than 30 years old and they show no sign of molding, fading, or yellowing. And still as shiny as the day they were made.
might sound odd but do you think baby powder/talcum powder could be a better cheap alternative to avoid the molding?
Clear gell acrylic medium...for thickener.
@@lia.lia.lia. check the baby powder composition, if it is calcite talc and dolomite its fine because they are minerals, but money wise I think it will be more expensive.
For pottery: put a layer of plastic between the clay and where you sign your pieces. It prevents a crumby scratchy signature. I like using ziploc freezer bags or clay bag plastic. Also putting cling wrap between a cookie cutter and the clay when you're cutting something like ornaments prevents the clay from sticking to the cutter (it also works for baking sugar cookies).
I use Muphy's Oil Soap to clean brushes with dried on paint. It works great on brushes with water based paints as well as oils.
I've known about the hairspray fixative hack since 1971 when my mom put me in a summer art camp. The preferred brand was Aqua Net and the only reason I remember that is because it's what my mom used. When I attended college twenty some years later, Aqua Net was still the recommended brand!
Yup. Long live Aqua Net for fixative. Cheap hairspray is awesome, especially for chalk pastels. It also fixes watercolor layers so you can add more layers of watercolor without reactivating the ones below.
My tip: if you use varnish or have hardened paint on paintbrushes, you can use CONDITIONER to get it off after a couple mins of scrubbing!
To add to this: use toothpaste for the more heavy duty stuff! Just be careful to not get it into the metal bit :)
Really?! This amazing 🤩
@@leyalaatasto9096 oh cool!
Omg thanks for this
During my time in art school I made myself a light box, which is pretty much a budget light table, so I could trace my art when I was working between mediums. It’s super cheap and easy to make and all you need is two things: a clear box & some stick-on lights. For the box you can pretty much find them at any store where they sell those clear plastic store bins. You can buy whatever size you like, but I bought one that was a medium size so that I could an 8.5x11 paper on it. Then go to your local hardware store, or the lighting section at your local Target or Walmart, and buy yourself a set of pressable lights that you can stick to surfaces. Usually people buy these kinda of lights to stick to walls in their homes, so they’re fairly easy to come across if you look around. I bought mine from Home Depot for like $15. The ones I like are the ones that can stick to things and are turned on and off by pressing down on them. Though I’ve also seen versions of these lights that come with a remote to turn them on and off. Either way, get what you like more and then all you gotta do is stick the lights in the box, turn em on, put the lid on the box, and there you go! Now you’ve got a light box that only cost you like $20 to make and is fairly easy to store :D
You can nowadays get an led light pads for a fiver though (best buy ever!) Haha
Prismacolor’s Colorless blender is also pretty good. But still I get the special blending skills of the white pencil. Nothing compares. And you’re right, it’s specifically Prismacolor brand. It’s magic.
Was going to comment the same things but saw yours.
I'd add in, from my own experience that the white prismacolor is good for blending lights while the colorless blender is good for darks and shadows, I've found it makes them even darker
For the transfer technique Rae mentioned in the video with chalk pastels! - You can use graphite too! Any old pencil will work! ❤️
This is exactly what I needed on this cold and miserable Saturday! Thanks for all the tips Rae, looking forward to using some of them!
Atleast watch the video first.....lol🤣
@@MAGICALARTWORK123 🧑🏽🎨 Yes!! We watched it together, and you were there too......
@@yesafied video was posted 4 mins ago when I commented....so probably he didn't watched it. Anyways that was not something that serious! U are over reacting 🙄
Lol sameeeeeeeeee
I am 63 and just started painting with acrylics. I’ve been a frustrated artist my whole life and have tried it all. Painting seems to be my best choice. That said, I’m SO GLAD I watched your videos. Such great information for someone just starting out without access to other painters close by! Thank you ever so much!! Your artistic ability is by fair the best I’ve seen!! You rock!😘
As an intermediate artist, I only suggest to stay determined... and for an art hack, if your medium is coloured pencils don't be afraid to do an underpainting of watercolor, markers, pastels, etc. At first it would be hard but with time you'll get habitual and it's super timesaving and effective.
Hope it helps... 😊
I've been using pastels in my college art class and I will say hairspray works just fine for things in your sketchbooks but once you're doing a big piece with lots of detail and layers you'll wanna invest in actual fixative. I'm super cheap and I love saving money, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and invest in the good stuff. You're not just spending money, you're investing in the quality of your artwork!
Or just add multiple layers of hair spray. My school has an entire shelf filled with hairspray cans in one of the art supply closets because we use it so often 😅
Fixative really isn't that expensive and a can lasts a long time. The finish is great and dries instantly.
Something I recently discovered while trying to paint one of those block letters from Walmart. It's made of pressed wood, so the edges have some gaps and grooves that remain even after sanding. At first, the paint (I was using acrylic) would just seep into the gaps, so I mixed it with Mod Podge glue and sealer. You could also use paintable wood putty around the edges first, but Mod Podge is a LOT cheaper and more versatile.
I use this art hack specially for mural painting(I’m sure you can use it on other stuff), but if you mix white acrylic gesso into cheap acrylic paint(like 50 cent apple barrel paint) it makes it similar to thick body paint for WAY cheaper. Makes you use a lot less paint and it drys slower. Been using this trick for awhile now and has not let me down. (Has saved me fortunes on buying thick body paint)
Or black gesso...which is hard to find.
If the paper rips whenever you peel off the washi tape, this is a tip for you :)
Before placing the tape on the paper you plan to mask off, lightly place the tape on your pants or other clothing to pick up some of the fuzz on the clothing. This takes away some of the stickiness while also having enough to stick onto the paper. Even placing the tape on your arm will pick up some of the oils that will also prevent the tape from ripping the paper. Be careful not to do this too much to the tape or it won’t stick to the paper very well. I don’t know the original source of this tip, but it is not my tip, I just want to share it to those who might need it!
Hope this helps some of y’all :)
It is rae's too i remember she told this in one video
Bad thing about washi tape is that some are just decorative, and have little stickiness to begin with... so it depends on the brand whether it would keep the paper from buckling.
You can even use a hair dryer on heat setting to melt the glue a bit and voila no mess or ripping of paper.
Paper ripping can also be minimized to a great extent if you pull the tape sideways than up, if that makes sense. It would be pulling it parallel to the plane of the paper, not perpendicular, but idk if I made it more or less complicated with this description.
@@safala Makes complete sense. I actually do them both.
I loved the tape hack. I've been so frustrated with (always) not getting a clean line and your tip makes so much sense
Art tips I find useful, even though they are already known
If the tip of the color pencil gets blunt but you don't want to sharpen it because there's still a lot left, use sanded paper and it gets pointy again.
Whenever I do that with my charcoals or graphite I save the powder in a container and I can use it to tone paper for a future drawing.
With the same clear gesso ( mine is liquitex):
If you want to tone your canvas but you have to prime it first, mix gesso with acrylic paint and you can choose whatever color base you want and prime at the same time.
Using clear gesso makes any paper into a friendly surface for sofpastels
You can practice oilpaint in any paper if you prime it with gesso first.
Thank you for the color pencil tip. I never thought to save the powder.😬
Thank You for all your tips..first time 👀..Love Barbie
I have used the crayon coloring hack since the late 80's. It really does make the color look smooth and saturated. Just make sure that when you get to the outline, to scrap in towards the colored area. I always used a paperclip to scrape with.
Tip : if your paint brush (dosen’t matter big or small) if it’s frizzy then just dip it in hot/boiling water works like a charm and also gets paint off your brush just a bit faster! 💕
Thank you! Sometimes when I use my brushes then clean in acetone I swear my brushes look like the hair of a troll doll! I didn't know how to get my bristles back into looking like a paint brush instead of a troll doll with a bad hair day. So thank you for this tip.
Thanks
If you’re going to use corn starch to make acrylic paint more opaque, you need to use distilled water or mold will form over time. In general when crafting, use distilled water (except when cleaning brushes).
such a good reminder, thanx, because its basically a food ergo the mold.
Thank you for that! I read it just in time❤
Except when cleaning brushes? What happens?
🎉❤🎉
Digital art hack: instead of using the 'blur' tool to blend, use an airbrush brush to blend. Keep overlapping it with both the two colours you are blending. I think it looks much better this way and feels like you are actually doing something because sometimes the blur tool feels like you are doing nothing
My friends and I used to make our own custom brushes in PS, which meant you could get that exact blend and texture you wanted in your work 😄
This hack works. Had done this hack myself too. Used to do the blur tool as well too. And same result as said comment. And it works in many or not if all of the blending I digitally do. Looks smooth. Beginner so ai am not sure of another word for smooth in this case. But it depends on the particle size too for the air brush settings. Some digital airbrushes tend to use square like dots instead of small dots. Therefore, sometime you have to check for size and pressure of the software's air brush.
Tbh I use both together 😂 like the airbrush won't be soft enough for my taste so I'll use the blur tool over it
(Older viewer. Current teacher, & all around old school 'student', here). Lol.
I've got a few things I want to throw out to you. 1) SUGGESTION for a future video: For this idea you might have to literally talk to older members of your family like grandparents or maybe great aunts or great uncles I'd love to see you do a video where you show for your current younger audience today some of the old time art tricks, tips and lessons that used to be taught in decades past, in school. Maybe an art technique or an art method that might have been done back in the 60s, 70s or 80s. It might be really fun for people to see some of the various types of art techniques and art lessons that were once taught. Matter of fact to jump-start you on the project I'll give you one. When I was in school I'd say maybe around 3rd or 4th grade, I can distinctly remember there being some type of an art lesson that we did where what we would do is we would take something hard or something that had a straight edge like the inside blade of a pair of scissors. What we would do is we would carefully peel off maybe about a quarter inch of the top rim of the Crayola wrapper paper.Then what we would do is literally shave off multiple layers of the crayola. We would put it on a piece of paper. We would then cover it w/ (I think parchment paper). Then if I'm not mistaken we would use an iron or we would get some other type of a heating element and we would run it across the paper to basically melt the crayon onto the paper, or might even have been a canvas I can't remember which. It's been so many years.Again I do distinctly remember a crafting project where you shave off Crayola bits and then you put a piece of paper down and then on top of the paper you run a hot iron or some other heating element.
2) QUESTION: For just as much and as well as the cornstarch technique worked to kind of jump-start the fluidity of the acrylic paint, I want to know what your thoughts and ideas are on the so-called 'oil-based' acrylic paint medium? Personally it's always sounded like a bit of an oxymoron to me you know in other words like something that shouldn't even be possibly. Obviously oil and water don't mix. So how is it that an oil-based element could survive within the watery environment of an acrylic? Have you ever tried that type of paint, before? What are your thoughts on it?
Thanks for your consideration of the above.
Have been an artist for 50+ years, not full-time, but regularly throughout the years. This is the first time I’ve watched a TH-cam video you made. Thanks for the tips! I wish I knew some of these back in the day!
It is strange, be ause my dad has been an artist for a little longer than you and I find most of these hacks to be common sense... I guess I have just been taking what I have learnt from him for granted.
I think I enjoyed this woman’s personality as much as her art tips. She made me smile today, and I needed that.
Agreed! She is soo likable!
Ditto!
Definitely true ❤❤❤
take a picture of your sketch and use any basic editing application to mirror it or just hold a mirror up to your sketch before you start rendering, it'll help you see parts that might look strange or out of proportion, you can keep looking at the mirror to make sure your corrections worked until you're happy with it, I swear it's helped me so much with noticing lopsided eyes or weird composition :3
hi Rae! regarding trick with acetone and acrlic paint: be carefull when using this trick on cheap brushes because those sometimes have brisletles glued with glue that is disolvalbe by acetone (may have happened to me few times ^^'). what you can use instead is rubbing alcochol or even ethanol. it's not as fast as acetone but will do the trick
Exactly... I paint on resin so this kind of hack is standard stuff. But sometimes you (i do!) sometimes forget that everyday stuff in one hobby translates well into other hobbies / mediums
As well as, if the bristles of the brush are synthetic it could dissolve the bristles.. - could
Rubbing alcohol is my remedy for everything. Getting ink out, removing paint, removing certain stains like hair color to name a few.
That's what I was thinking
Hand sanitizer does an incredible job! I went through and cleaned all of my brushes a while back and they are like new
For watercolor, do all your line art/drafting with watercolor pencils! Make sure you have similar colors to what you need in the finished painting and the line art disappears, no erasing.
I recently realized my fancy colored pencils are watercolor after all! Thanks, I will definitely use this!
This makes total sense, but I never ever connected those dots, so a BIG thank u
The hack using neon paint to lighten a shade singlehandedly made me smash that like button. . . The cornstarch trick had me hovering over the button though!
Regarding the tracing the outline trick, I've always done something similar by rubbing a pencil across the back instead of chalk. But I recently found graphite powder. Just a VERY TINY PORTION of that stuff rubbed all over the back does the same trick.
That’s what I use as well… plus, you can erase the graphite a heck of a lot easier than chalk :)
I’ve always used pencil for that as well. Works great, and it’s cheap.
@@Wranglerlaura yep…
Or just use a piece of carbon paper?!
@@221b-Maker-Street That's far more expensive.
For all you digital artists out there: If you wanna create a patterned cloth like plaid, paisley, etc but you don't wanna deal with the headache of drawing it to align with the folds here's what you do:
draw whatever pattern you're using flat (or use an image or brush texture). adjust it to be a bit bigger than the area that you want to cover on all sides. Then use a liquify tool or something similar to make it conform to the shape of the drawing underneath. I use Procreate and I use a mixture of the push, pinch, and expand tools for the best outcome. Then all you do is erase the excess, add your shading, and you're done!
This also works well for t shirt graphics, writing on a banner, tattoos, anything you can think of! I've never seen this hack anywhere else and it's saved me sooo much time and frustration
Omg that's brilliant
Whaaaaaaaa I'm SHOOK
a ceramic deviled egg platter makes an amazing painters pallet. you can find them at the dollar store, goodwill and online stores.
@@AwakeLazarus so do plain syrofoam egg cartons.
Art gloves can be used for more than just digital art. I use them when I ink, with graphite and with charcoal. It helps with smudging and allows your hand to glide nicer, plus it's archival because you don't get your skin oils on your work.
You don't need to buy the wacom ones and infact, I find those really uncomfortable and too thick. Huion has multipacks for the cost of just one wacom glove and they're very comfortable (plus you can get one with a skeleton hand!).
I just bought the skeleton hand one!
Just found your channel & as I was watching, you mentioned soaking your paint brushes in acetone to dissolve the paint. I’ve never tried that, but I did want to share a tip- It’s about how to keep the tips of your brushes from not curling at the tip- the answer? Never leave them sitting in your water jar-it’s a rule here! 😊 So, because of this, another “hack” I thought of when cleaning brushes is to use an empty Wet Ones container to suspend your brush into the cleaner for soaking. Push your brush handle thru the inside of lid, make sure it’s not going to touch bottom, add your cleaner & snap lid in place. Works great! 👍🏻😊
Thank you! When she mentioned that hack I thought I'd have to find a way to soak them without damaging the tips. Good idea!
Murphys oil soap and a little water clean the driest acrylic brushes to like new. Smells much better snd less caustic. May need to soak a few days.
For miniature painting: disposable liquid eyeliner brushes are excellent detail brushes. They’re super handy and you can buy them in bulk really easily.
Hopping back to the paint and cornstarch hack, add a larger amount of cornstarch to your cheap paint to create a thick paint that will hold shape and/or create texture for bases. Way cheaper than buying texture paints
1. That chalk hack also works with graphite. I recommend 2B graphite pencils or soft graphite sticks. But HB and medium work too.
2. You can clean your blending stump with sandpaper as well. Definitely easier than cleaning off on erasers.
3. Complementary colors for shadows/ darker colors. I prefer watercolors so, this works at least for watercolors.
_Purple on yellows give beautiful darker yellows. Green with red, gorgeous darker greens. A tiny bit of red on blue and vice versa give darker blues and reds. Burnt sienna (or yellower browns) with a bit of cobalt or ultramarine blue give a very neutral brown._
4. Okay, this is a bit complicated, I think but well worth knowing for vibrant colors. Learn to identify your cool and warm hues. So, basically, cooler reds (more pinkish) have a blue undertone while warmer reds (more orangeish) have yellow undertones. Warmer yellows (orangeish yellows) have red undertones while cooler yellows (bright, lemon yellows) have greenish undertones. Warmer blues (cobalt, ultramarine blues) have reddish undertones while cooler blues (prussian, maybe cerulean) have greenish undertones. *Note: all three primaries mixed produce blacks or browns.* So, the key to vibrant colors is to not mix colors that contain all three primaries, even if it is in trace amount. So, for example, don't mix warmer reds with blues (red + yellow undertone & blue has all three primaries) or warmer yellows with blues (yellow + red undertones & blue). And the same goes for all colors (make sure to not mix colors with all three primaries) if you want vibrant colors and the opposite if you want duller (and sometimes darker) colors. Of course, self experimentation with the amount of pigment you use and all that matters too, but learning this helped me _A TON_ to figure out color mixing and I hope it helps you too.
Thanks for that insight. Does this decrease graphite shine?
@@MiniMu-2008 Which one? I'm not clear.
Awesome advice! I'm really taking in so much with everyone's tips 😊
Oh, these are really good!!
@@kirawoodling1399 Thank you.
When I used crayons as a kid, I would always employ that color-on-scrape-off technique. I guess i never really considered it an art hack!
So here's another one of a similar vein: Color with a colored pencil, then erase for a nice fade effect. You can recolor over it with another color too, if you don't want a heavy saturation in your mix.
I did too, because I just hated the way crayon looked. I also used to put the tip of the crayon in melted candle and apply to paper (when I could get away with it---not all adults were super thrilled with my little trick)
I did both of those as well! Kinda messed up some of my erasers on the second one but apparently those can be washed 😂
I love adding interesting texture with coarse sea salt! I have no idea if the sodium is going to degrade the paint over time but I have some I did 4+ years ago that still look identical to when I finished them, no warping and sometimes a tiny bit of texture can upgrade a painting majorly. liquitex makes a medium that does the same effect but table salt is cheap and we all have it around but kosher or sea salt is best
The salt in acrylic paint is a nice hack. Getting a nice matte finish mixing salt water solution to the color. Too much looks whitish or cloudy but great use of effect.
In my broke artist days I couldn't afford sketchbooks (and I couldn't ask my parents for more because I filled them up so fast), so my life hack is that I learned how to make my own with just cardboard, printer paper, and twine. No sewing needed! You just fold your paper & cardboard in half, wrap the twine around the spine of your cover, and slide your paper in. It works surprisingly well :)
Art hack: I saw a girl using white crayon as a masking fluid for watercolour.And after painting ,she chiped it up and was left pretty white.I found it cool cause usually masking fluids are more expensive than crayons.But they do have more preccision i guess .
Yeah wax repeals water from soaking in. Just can’t paint over it after removing without some of that left wax showing through the color. Did it with a project and its amazing.
It makes sense since crayons can also be used as a resist for coloring Easter eggs.
Yes! Clear candles work too. Just make sure you don't have to paint anything on it after that.
rubber cement alao works as a much cheaper alternative to masking fluid for watercolors or inks… The upside of it over a wax resist is that when you rub it off the surface is still workable😄
This is the first time I've seen an art hack video that contained actual useful information of things I honestly did not know before!! Thank you so very much for all of these!!
If you're a lefty and use spiral Sketchbooks: put the spiral on the right. Go back to front like a Manga. It helps a LOT. It is so much more comfortable and lets you flow so much easier. Happy drawing all ❤️
I have never thought of doing this, its so smart!
@@alexisjohnson1445 Thank you! Took nearly 18 years for me to figure that little trick out! 😅
Been doing that in my school notebooks and sketchbooks forever. Hated spiral notebooks as a little kid!
Or use it horizontally 😊
@@x-mess that definitely works if you're doing landscapes and such! But I was more towards if you need it vertically but yes! That works too!
*ART HACK✏*
When drawing fine hairs or fur, indent the paper with an empty pen or with an indenting stylus to preserve the highlights!😊 The highlights STAY white even if u layer on top!😁 This is a life-saver for artists that draw realistically that HATE drawing little highlights🖊
I hope this helps🎇
I agree, it sort of flattens out the surface, making it smoother or slicker… so the fine details don’t ‘sink’ in!
That is my super art hack for color pencils 😁 I once textured an entire drawing with a stylus before adding any pencil color... my kids thought I had gone crazy working so hard on an invisible drawing 😂
11:20 I used to love the white prismacolor pencils, but I learned a couple years ago that you can use a tiny bit of vaseline on a brush to blend your colored pencils instead and I've never gone back!
If you want a smooth finish with a crayon, you can actually "prime" your paper with a layer of wax before you start drawing. Just take the white crayon or some uncolored paraffin wax and lay down a thin layer on your paper. I don't know about other brands, but Crayola will layer beautifully once it has some wax under it.
My art hack is a projector facing downwards onto the table or your canvas.
I use this to enlarge my photos so I can paint them.
I originally bought projector to project sewing patterns but gets used more for painting.
When you project the picture just lightly pencil the main outlines & detailed areas
LOVE THIS HACK
What projector do you use?
Would you be willing to share the brand you use and...if any... Additional equipment required for your setup? Thank you so much
!
Great tip on the markers and alcohol. You can also use rubbing alcohol and a Q-tip for blending markers if your blender is going dry or you don't have one.
Also, for those of us that do commissions at conventions, a small bottle of hand sanitizer will also work for the drying or dying marker as well.
For the markers, you can pull out the core with tweezers and reverse it. Or, out the whole marker in the bottle,let it sit,then spray. Makes a fun unique pattern.
Yes! My husband just taught me this trick!
Aqua net is what we ALWAYS used in our art classes! It’s the best “fixative spray” alternative!
And cheap😂
My art teacher always told us the cheaper the better 😂 I have to agree - the fancy ones that don’t make your hair like steel are not the best at protecting artwork!
Thanks!
I never even knew there was a fixative until I got older and saw it..... always used hair spray on finished chalk work and it think AquaNet was only a $1 😆
What is Aqua Net ?
you can also use crayons on top of colored pencils for smooth texture or to help with blending or dimension
edit: i for dimension i mean like - if you’re coloring water and you want it to also have like a greenish hue to it - lightly go over with a crayon -
Here’s an art hack I know: if you’re scanning in your traditional lined artwork, draw the sketch underneath with an erasable light blue pencil, then do the line art, before scanning it in. That way, you can easily edit out any lines left over from your sketch in Photoshop or your drawing program of choice on your computer so that the scanned image just shows the line art and not the underlying sketch! This is because light blue is a “non-photo blue”, meaning it isn’t picked up by copiers/scanners, and anything that is picked up is easier to edit out digitally!
Rae, Moriah and Chloe are the holy grails of art TH-cam!
I don’t like Moriah. She is just so rich now and she acts like it too
@@isaballs1796 ehh nahh but tbh she has turned a bit diff now
@@luvnasma ikr
Istggg exactly they r the ONLY THREE art TH-camrs tht i watch or have subscribed to
@gamma right him too
Recently I found some of my old paint brushes and no matter how much I cleaned them the old acrylic paint was not coming off. At last I left the paintbrushes in petrol overnight and next day i washed them with soap and now they work like a charm!
Rubbing alcohol was life changing when I learned I could use it with polymer clay. It can help smooth clay, remove colors that smeared into another, and blending clay. I literally use it with every project I start! Another tip, don't leave unbaked polymer clay on plastic surfaces, it'll melt it (learnt the hard way!)
Rubbing alcohol also cleans your hands after you're done sculpting in polymer clay! (Some say that rubbing alcohol dries out your skin but unless you already have very dry skin, I don't see why it's an issue. Also while mineral oil can remove polyclay residue too, it's messy. So you gotta wash your hands afterwards--which defeats the purpose)
I buy alcohol in large bottles Walmart or CVS with coupon and turn to it for many removals first before I start with the more toxic stuff if necessary.
I used the crayon hack lots as a kid in art class. I was genuinely surprised to find out that a lot of people didn't know about it.
Same here
Same.
Great hacks! Thank you 💜
I like using colored pencils on watercolor paper and then blending with baby oil and q-tips. Very vibrant and smooth.
Do other oils work or is it just baby oil that works? Thank you for this great hack!
@@SammL.aka.MydnyteShadows I haven't tried anything else, but it would be fun to experiment.
Random little thing I've picked up, when blending pencil/graphite, you can use a glasses cleaner over your finger. It works really well to get a smooth finish, and your finger won't get covered in graphite.
@kuyswe Wait you mean the solution/liquid people spray on their glasses? I'm talking about the little cloth squares
@kuyswe ah ok! Glad to have that "cleared" up (pun intended)
@kuyswe haha same
Here's one I learned when I was a nail artist. I just sort of figured it out. Use alcohol to remove acrylic paint on just about anything including clothing. The only caveat is that if the acrylic paint is completely set up, you won't be able to remove it completely and you'll need acetone. But in the case of doing nails, if you are doing some art you first any topcoat and let it dry and then do the art over the topcoat then topcoat again. By doing that, if you mess up, you just wipe it off with alcohol and viola! You are all set to go again. Don't forget to topcoat over your masterpiece when you're done.
And for the rest of is artists, I always keep rubbing alcohol on the table when I'm painting with acrylic. It helps with clean up and any mistakes. If your brushes are getting a little yucky, soak them for a few minutes and they'll come clean. And because alcohol is drying, if your brushes start getting a bit dry, just give them a little conditioning with hair conditioner or oil. But only use a bit and remember to wash it out before you use it again. I also train my brushes with hair spray.
You can also take old, dried out Crayola markers - soak the same color in a container. ALL the ink will leach out and you get watercolor paint. Usually it's very weak but it great for beginners to do broad washes for backgrounds. I teach elementary art and I never throw markers away until I get the last bit of color out. Then I let my 1st graders have at it.
Love the chalk on back to transfer a design....back in my high school days when we didn't have computers and had to learn typing, you had carbon paper to make duplicates.
When I was doing art with my children when they were small we would use carbon paper to transfer designs. I have just about used up all the old carbon paper I have been hoarding. Thanks! My one regret in life is that I never learned to draw when I was young, but in my empty nest retirement years am trying to learn.
Do they make carbon paper nowadays
@@Threadbow I don't think they have made it for decades. Between Xerox machines and word processers and PCs, it kinda went the way of the buggy whip,
@@impalamama7302 You're mistaken. They do still make. I have a stash of it. You'll find it in an art store most likely. I use it when I do a muralvto transfer my design that alive drawn in large newsprint paper.
@@Threadbow Yes, they do.
@@donnabashline4933 That's good to know,! Maybe I can find it online.
I'm an art teacher and all these hacks are giving me life, thank you!!!
Love the vid! New subscriber now.
One lil hack I learnt and use is ripping up toilet paper and mixing in white glue (pva). Leave it to soak a few minutes. Then give it a good stir (or mix with hand, dependent on thickness wanted) to basically shred the wet paper, and then use it as a clay of sorts. Personally, I change foam heads into “monsters” using this technique. It sticks to the foam much better than clay. It also dries really hard.
I love this idea! Have you had any projects long enough to know how it holds up to time, humidity, etc?
@@creatiVeronica actually, it is a technique that Jazza swears by for great paper mache results! -- for longer protection, brush the last coat with thinned-down white (pva) glue.
@@zurgishsweet4895 or Mod Podge.
I do this at Halloween with latex too. last year I got a dollar tree skull and used the technique with a couple of ping pong balls to make a severed zombie head - I have also used it with skin safe latex to create prosthetics or do things like create a false skin layer that can be cut or sewn.
To smoothly remove tape from your surface hold a hairdryer over it for just enough time to warm the tape up. Start pulling the tape off your surface while you hold your hairdryer over the next section of the tape. No paper surface damage!
this also usually works great for removing labels from bottles or jars you want to save but don't want the commercial look on them. I remove all labels from everything as much as possible. Who wants to look at a ups code?
Thanks so much
How did I JUST now find you?!? You're amazing! Your energy and attitude are so magnetic, just love it!! I LOVE art, know a lot of hacks myself and these are fantastic! One hack I use is the make up brush one, but also a pumice stone can add really interesting texture😊
I got one for digital and one for pencil sketching
• if your line art looks good untill you hide the sketch then put your sketch at 15%< opacity then you could see the lines your putting down better (bonus: you will never draw on the wrong layer again as your lines on the sketch later will be really light alerting you that your on the wrong layer)
• the most useful pencils for sketching are 2B, 6B, 9B are most recommended, so don't waste your money on a whole set
Love 2B
A warning for anyone using hairspray: It will likely yellow over time! If it's just your sketchbook and you're fine with it yellowing, don't worry about it, but if it's a very precious piece of art, you might want to splurge on a can of the more expensive fixative if you can!!
Yeah....I learned this the hard way.
:(
@@sometimessnarky1642 Sorry to hear that! Maybe some white watercolor or white ink would help to bring the paper closer to it's original hue?
If you do buy a fixative, I wouldn't worry too much about the price - I bought a can of it in 2019 and still use it to this day, so one can will definitely last you a long time!!
Input sheets of kitchen roll in between the pages.
I think it pretty much goes without saying that you use hairspray on trials and experiments and not on something precious or for a client
Get that fixative!
When I paint with acrylics…
For clouds… clothes pin & cotton…
You can form the cotton to whatever size you like. Put one end in the clothes pin (helps keep you clean) and dab, dab on that FaBu cloud. Don’t 4get to dab the shading on very lightly.
🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼
Gurly, so glad I came across your art hacks.
Like when I blend chalks, I use a plastic or non latex glove 🧤 to blend & keep my hand clean.
Art hack:
(Great for comic and manga artists)
You can dilute your "Water proof" ink with water to create permanent tones instead of buying tone sheets. Takes practice but it's like hybrid watercolor.
But if you like the look of tone paper by all means go for it!
For brighter, more vivid color without adding white, put down a layer of pure white first and then glaze over with the color thinned with glazing medium. Looks neon & works especially well for painting something like lemons.