Know an artist who has lots and lots of time on their hands? This stop motion animation kit may be the perfect thing to fill up those hours. It’s actually a really fun process, but it is slow – there’s no way around that. This kit will certainly help speed things up and they’ll be making short films before they can say Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
It’s about time someone put a new spin on the jigsaw puzzle. Test an artist’s visual palette by making them assemble this bear of a puzzle using only their color instincts. Its reliance on color over line stimulates the brain in a different way from standard puzzles, presumably making an artist even more artisty.
Looking for a really bright idea? A light box is a great gift for artists who draw and sketch. If you’ve ever seen them trace an image by taping it up on a window, then you’ve found the perfect gift. These LED light boxes are thin and portable, can last more than 50,000 hours, and stay cool to the touch.
In the right hands, a color wheel is like a recipe book for beautiful design. There are actually a lot of cool tricks that can be achieved by placing certain colors beside each other, as Jasper Johns explored in his work in the 1950s. For example, did you know that you can make one color look like two different colors? Or make two different colors appear as if they were exactly the same? There is a science behind it all, about how your brain interprets sensory input, but let the artist worry about that. Just know that this is an item that should be included with every painter’s toolkit, that can help them mix colors and understand the effects colors have on one another.
The greatest innovation in stippling since…well maybe the only innovation in stippling. It’s a fun process and the results are beautiful, there’s just one big problem - making all those damn dots. If the artist you know happens to have shaky hands (or a serious coffee addiction), then they may already be a stippling machine, but for the rest of us there is the Pointillist Electronic Pen.
Yes, it is possible to actually have green eggs and ham, and your artist friend may just be zany enough to try it. This edible spray paint is commonly used in cake decorating but any true artist will find several more creative uses for it.
Shapescapes is a toy designed to inspire creativity in three dimensions. Once you start playing with it you can’t keep your hands off. It’s like a combination of legos and trying to see shapes in clouds. It’s described as a product for kids but there’s no reason this wouldn’t be fun for adults too, and after all, artists are often kids at heart.
If the artist you know has a show at a gallery coming up, this handy picture hanging tool is just what they need. Hanging lots of pictures of varying sizes on a wall and having it look neat and evenly spaced is a challenge. This tool includes 6 feet of tape measure, a built-in level, and will mark the wall to tell them exactly where the nails should go.
Artists often have their head in the clouds, which is also where they should be accessing their new suite of creative tools from Adobe. A subscription to Adobe’s Creative Cloud gives artists a powerful set of applications to make everything from graphic art, to videos and websites.
