What's your art tools?

Ooh! Good idea for a thread!

For Sewing:
Kenmore sewing machine (it runs sooo smoooooooth)
Professional dress form from Fabulous Fit (which I still need to fatten up)
I use a variety of sewing notions...even from the 99 cent store

For Beading/Jewelry making:
I get most of my materials from Fire Mountain Gems.
I only use Accu-Flex beading wire. It's the BEST beading wire on the market!!!
As for tools like pliers and wire cutters, I use Craftsman tools from Sears. I am such a Sears girl.

Fun fun fun!

For Drawing and Graphic Design:
Micron and Copic fineliner pens
Mechanical pencils
Variety of graphite
Black gum eraser
About 20 different sized tortillions
Artograph light board
Prismacolor colored pencils and markers
Computer paper (it's still my fave)
Photoshop CS2
Illustrator CS2

Sewing and patternmaking:
Husqvarna Viking Sapphire 850 Computerized machine

Janome Harmony Serger
An old '70s Fabulous Fit dress form and a teeny 24" waist display form
A million different notions and fabrics
Craft paper from Micheal's for pattern-making
Muslin for draping
A 4-pack of french curves for pattern-making
A cheap-o yellow tape measure

Accessory making:
Everything I can find!
Lots of ribbon and lace.
Hot glue and super glue.

Photography:
Olympus E-500 DSLR
Manfrotto tripod
Photoshop CS2 (wanna get Lightroom)


I do sometimes paint and other stuff, but those are my main interests.

^^Oh, and Diva, I LOVE Fire Mountain Gems. Their stuff is to die for!

Before my other computer crashed around the fourth of July I would mainly work with Photoshop CS, Streamline, and Freehand 9 as a vector program. It was so much simpler to use than Illustrator and you could eliminate a lot of the useless anchors you get in Illustrator without distorting the image too much. However since the crash I've got Photoshop 7, which is kind of a bummer but at least it has Eyecandy 3000 which is ok; and Illustrator CS2 because the new mac I got is a 10.4 as opposed to the 10.3.9 I had, and this new one does not support OS9 Classic which is what I needed to run Freehand. Aside from the scanner that is all I needed for computer art.

For traditional art I would use compressed charcoal sticks or charcoal pencils just because I don't like the chipping and unevenness of vine charcoal, mechanical pencils of any sort, Micron pens when and if I needed to ink, and a gum erasure. The kinds of paper used varied by project. For charcoal portraits I would use 80lb sketch paper, for the strips I would use typing paper because it had a cleaner surface when scanning, when I would try inking I would use bristol pad, and for random sketches or designs I would use newsprint or vellum.

As Halloween comes around I'm planning to get more into building dioramas so the tools I'm starting with are really basic such as exacto knives, balsa wood, and craft kits from Micheals.

Sony Cybershot.

And every six months or so I use an xacto knife for ten minutes before getting frustrated with my black scratchboard and hiatus-ing.

For sewing-

An antique cast iron Singer or my new-ish Singer Simple
Scraps I've amassed over the years or salvaged recently from Goodwill or Refusa
Free newspapers for pattern drafting


For dyeing-

Fiber reactive and acid wash dyes from pro-chem
Fabric from pro-chem
Synthrapol
Soda ash
A 10 gallon bucket
Waxes, bindings, etc.


For sculpting-

Fabric
Things Refusa gives me
Things from the freestore at my school
Things I find in the forest or by the sea
Chicken wire
Paper
String
Mod podge


For ideas-

Conversations
Interactions
Books
Periodicals
Dreams
Spirituality
Music
My sketchbook
My folders of paper scraps- images, quotations, etc.



Also, as a side note, "Refusa" is the goddess of trash day (I don't actually believe in her, but it's fun to talk about!) I know that it's a bit strange, but I'm a conceptual artist, and it fits in well with my work.

Wow, everyone here is so specific. Makes me feel kinda lame but ya, I just use pretty much whatever I have on hand for whatever I am in the mood for making.

my art tools

MAC 217 blending brush
MAC 239
2 angled brushes
1 flat eye shadow brush
1 blush brush
1 face contour brush
1 powder brush
1 lip brush
angled sponges
eye lash curlers
glue stick for concealing eyebrows
eye lash glue