I need to make a confession…

I’m secretly addicted to those click bait articles that are like

‘10 Creative Ways to Repurpose Common Household Items’

And don’t even get me started on my love of the ‘Life Hack’…

 

Anyway, I thought I’d add my own inky voice to this pool of online wisdom.

 

So without further ado, I present to you:

5 Supermarket Items to have in your Colouring Kit

 

1. Baby Oil

I use baby oil as a blending solution for coloured pencils. You have to use it sparingly to avoid turning your paper into a slippery mess – a little goes a long way! Watch my Baby Oil blending tutorial here to see more.

 

2. Hairspray

If you’ve used chalk pastels to create a background or particularly soft colouring pencils that are prone to smudging, a quick mist of hairspray works like Artist’s Fixative and will hold all those colours in place when you are finished colouring. Go outside, stand back to void dripping and give the picture a light mist.

 

3. Q-Tips / Cotton Buds

Cotton buds are great for blending little areas of chalk pastel or dipping into baby oil to blend coloured pencil.

 

4. Cotton Wool

I like to use the small cotton wool balls for blending chalk pastel backgrounds. I use a scalpel to scrape a small amount of chalk dust onto the paper, then use a cotton wool ball to blend the chalk into the paper. Watch my chalk pastel background tutorial  for more info.

 

5. Nail Files / Emery Boards

I use emery boards (or sheets of sandpaper) to super sharpen pencil points or file away stained bits on blending stumps (used with blending solution) that might otherwise contaminate my colours.

 

Many of these items feature in my tutorial videos, so take a peek at those and see how exactly I put these simple grocery store bits and pieces to work in the studio!

 

Do you have any clever tips and tricks using odds and ends from around the house?!

Have fun and happy colouring!

Johanna x

 

Before you go…

If you like this, then you should probably sign up for my weekly Inky Email newsletter. No junk or spam, just a weekly letter from me to you full of inspiration, studio sneak peeks and cool projects like this!

And don’t forget, my new book, World of Flowers is out now!