Art Supply Hacks: How to Fix Common Product Fails and Frustrations (Gelly Roll Pens too)

Comments · 558

• IL

  @illustrazionidilut · 5 months ago · pinned

  We’ve all been there— the white jelly pen is clogged, a marker not matching the color cap, the tape ruining your watercolor painting in the very end. In today’s video, I’m sharing my favorite &quot;emergency&quot; hacks to rescue your supplies and save money. These are the tricks I use in my own studio to keep things running smoothly when products don&apos;t perform like they should. <br>What´s your favorite art supply hack you keep using? Share with me in the comments!

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• OA

  @oandptech · 5 months ago

  I&apos;ve been waiting for that gellyroll hack for <br>TWENTY <br>YEARS <br>Thank you from the bottom of this millennial&apos;s heart

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• CA

  @CazkiwiNZ · 5 months ago

  You can also refill Pigma micron/fineliners - You can pull the nib with tweezers and fill using a syringe with India/Bombay ink… which has the bonus of being cheap AND waterproof - and those pens no longer have to be expensive disposables! (I have a pic of what I looks like to do it in my community posts on my profile)

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• IA

  @iartedjubiesstudio5008 · 5 months ago

  My hack: Use a tennis sweat band on your wrist to wipe your water color brushes when painting on the go. Love the white pen hack btw

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• CR

  @creativecolours2022 · 5 months ago

  Hi Luigi! The best and easier way to flatten your watercolor paintings is by dry ironing their underside. Place the painting face down on a thick fabric or old bed sheet on a flat hard surface, ( on a table, the floor, something flat anyway) &nbsp;and then iron it in medium heat for cellulose papers and in high heat for the cotton ones. If you want you can spray the back side, but don&apos;t use the steam of your iron. It is better to empty the water tank of the iron and make sure that won&apos;t use the steam of &nbsp;the iron. <br><br>There is an Android app for tracing your images with the help of &nbsp;a tablet &nbsp;that is called Trace It and does that thing. It shows your photo on the screen of your tablet but it also locks it and changes the brightness of the screen in order to be able to trace the image. Tablet screens can be bright enough to trace on 300gsm paper. <br><br>I store my papers into vacuum storage plastic bags those that are for storing clothes. These are available in extra large sizes for storing duvets and they have enough space to store large sheets of paper too.<br><br>The right way to store your alcohol markers in order to last longer is into plastic food containers. These containers don&apos;t have to be the most air tight ones of course. Simple food containers ( the flat ones are great ) with a lid make the markers last longer. You can store your markers into these containers by color and write with large letters on the outside which colours are in these containers. <br><br>Glycerin is sold at pharmacies. You&apos;ve got to tell them how much glycerin you want, because they have it in huge bottles. 100ml of glycerine will last you literally forever because you need just drops of it in your paints. <br><br>The problem with gouache is not that it dries hard into the wells, you can reactivate it if you spray it with water after all. The problem is that it cracks and falls off the wells. When I was a student though I placed my gouache paints in the edges of a small plastic tray and I let the blobs dry there. When I wanted to use them I sprayed them. Even if they dried out that hard they never fell off the tray. For transferring the tray I used a plastic bag.<br><br>You can fix the sizing of an old paper with the following recipe. <br>Dilute food gelatin with lukewarm water adding into it a bit of baking powder ( that it contains sodium aluminium sulfate which is needed to stabilize your gelatin sizing). The oven pan should be large enough to be able to bath your papers into this liquid. <br>Then place your spoiled paper into this juice, let it soak for a while there, and then let it air dry outside. Be careful not to touch the surface of the paper and secure it on a rope or something by its edges. <br>That is the way to fix a spoiled paper sizing. <br><br>You don&apos;t have to buy Gum Arabic because you can make it yourself. The way to do it is to dilute raw Gum Arabic ( it is available either in blobs or in powder form) into warm water the way you make syrup. You have to heat your pan and stir continuously because Gum Arabic is like sugar. It can stick in the bottom of your pan. After diluting it in the consistency of sugar syrup, you have to strain it in order to make sure that it doesn&apos;t have any impurities in it, add a tea spoon full of honey, dilute it well in your syrup and then let it cool before putting it in a bottle and store it in your refrigerator. And that&apos;s all. <br>When you want to make watercolor paints you mix your own made Gum Arabic binder in a ratio 1 to 1 with your pigment adding in the mix a little more honey depending always the kind of pigment you use. Earth colours that tend to dry harder need more honey than synthetic pigments. <br><br>End of Marialena&apos;s Encyclopedia article.

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• GA

  @garymcguire8529 · 5 months ago

  Jelly pens, also dry up, I have found, that you can heat the jelly inside the plastic tube, by placing it in hot water for 5 minutes.

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• AL

  @AlvaSvart · 4 months ago

  After years of unprofessional beginner/hobby watercolor painting I learned today (twice!) that watercolor paper is getting &quot;old&quot; over time. So, no holding back to use up my papers and &quot;save&quot; them for later. xD

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• UR

  @ursousa · 2 weeks ago

  That plein air board is an EXCELLENT hack. Ingenious!

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• SU

  @suew4609 · 5 months ago

  Put a couple of copper pennys under your sponge on your wet palette and it will keep the mold from forming!

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• AM

  @amyschmidt1113 · 5 months ago

  These comments are so useful after watching the video. &nbsp;We are so lucky to have this resource.

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• MA

  @mauro712001 · 4 days ago

  Thank you Luigi I love that finally I won&apos;t be disappointed anymore like I was every time I used the white pen

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• MA

  @maletu · 5 months ago

  All kinds of pens and markers: shake them down, like we used to do with mercury thermometers (snapping motion with wrist).

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