Tools of the trade: the credit card

As you would expect at this time of the year our flexible friend is very much in use, but here in the InStitches Studio perhaps not in a way you would first expect! 

 'Retired' plastic cards (credit, debit, store, gallery or Premier Inn keycard!) are definatly our favourite creative tool.  Whether it's for mixing and printing, mark-making and scraping or using with a silk screen, the humble credit card is hard to beat. 

We seem to have an ever increasing supply of these small rectangles of plastic but the two pictured above are my favourites - thanks V&A!  In  Bringing Colour to Life  this week they were being used for simple mark-making with thickened Procion dyes.

But first of all it was used for mixing and blending,

then it was used to scrape down broad strokes of dye as students began to explore colour.

Here the basic cool and warm primaries are being lightened and darkened by either the addition of extra manutex or brown dye.

And then they were off - exploring the mark making potential of this humble piece of plastic!

What's your favourite mark making tool?

Hazel & Terry