How to Make Homemade Plastic Art Combs - Part 1 of 7 - The Tools

Fig.1 Homemade plastic comb

By Gary Boutin

Tools and Supplies:
Art paper
Aviation cutters
Acrylic paint (Poster paint)
Liquitex Deep Portrait Pink paint
Plastic Art Combs
Plastic bottles (Including water bottles)
Plastic fruits containers
Scissors
Utility knife (with sharp new blades)
Watercolor Block Rough Block 472-15 Series (15 by 20 in.)

Art Combs are used for kid's art and each comb provides four choices of patters for the artist. But why not use these combs for adult art. Need that extra special texture or pattern, create your own art combs. Blick Art Materials® is my art art store of choice, sells a pack of four Roylco Paint Scrapers® for their price of $5. The pack has 4-patterns and are easy to clean and use.

This post shows how easy to make, use, and clean your own art combs. Each comb will be tested on watercolor paper. When the combs are created, the artist is in complete control of what shape is being made and this can add fabulous and interesting shapes to your painting.

This post shows three steps of the tools needed to make inexpensive art combs.

Step 1: Fig.2 through fig.6 shows the plastic bottles and plastic fruits containers used to make these plastic combs. When you purchase fig.2 water, fig.3 naked juice, fig.4 fruit juices, fig.5 strawberries containers, fig.6 yogurt containers, can be used to provide the medium (plastic structure) for your combs.

Fig.2 Opaque 
Plastic
Water Bottle

Fig.3 Semi Clear 
Naked
Juice Bottle

Fig.4 Clear
Plastic
Juice Bottle

Fig.5 Strawberries containers

Fig.6 Yogurt containers

Step 2: Fig.7 and fig.8 shows the cutting tools needed, aviation cutters and utility knife with a sharp blade. The aviation cutter are used because some of the plastic is to dense to cut with just a utility knife and the best reason is that it is a safer tool than using a utility knife with a sharp blade. Fig.8 shows strong sharp scissors can help cut the shapes into the plastic walls of each containers.

Fig.7 Aviation Cutters
and Utility Knife

Fig.8 Strong scissors

Step 3: Fig.9 and fig.10 shows paint and paper. Any type of paint can be used to test each comb. For example poster paint which is inexpensive to purchase can be used to see if the comb give the effect that is needed. For this post Liquitex Deep Portrait Pink paint was used. Fig.10 shows Block Watercolor Rough Block 472-15 Series (15 by 20 in.). Any type of art paper that can absorb water is perfect to see if the comb produces the effect needed for the painting.

Fig.9 Liquid paint

Fig.10 Watercolor Paper

Interesting Links about combs:

• Comb Painting 
• Comb Painting with Kids

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