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I am wondering what product/tool can be used to make polka dots. Lets' say I have a stamp that has a person with clothes on and I want to make their dress/shirt with polka dots. If I color the shirt red, how would I get white polka dots? I appreciate any suggestions. Thank you
What medium are you working with? If you are using alcohol markers, you can use the blender (clear) marker to sort of lift the color. (It's not perfect, and they'll probably be pink instead of white but that's one thing the blender is for.)
Otherwise, I agree with Sue that acrylic paint or pigment ink is the way to go. (Acrylic paint is much cheaper, though.) To make smaller dots, I might get out a cotton swab and snip one end off-- that should be a round stick. (Maybe sure you have a paper swab-- I think ones that are plastic in the center will be hollow. But then you could have rings instead!
I was also going to suggest round toothpick, but the end will get you very very small dots, and I figured a swab is easier to cut. Oh! But you could also use a very fine paint brush-- they make some that are rounder than others, so that could work as well.
If it's an outline stamp...stamp the image on a piece of polka dot paper. Fussy cut out just the dress/shirt and glue this on top of the rest of the image that you have already stamped and colored. Since I am really not into painting, etc. this is what I would do.
I find white gel pens the easiest. White acrylic paint is great too, using anything the diameter of the dot size you’d like: like Arlene said, the end of a paint brush, stylus, tiny eraser, craft stick end (the type with a point at one end and round at the other), a stencil if you have a polka dot one, etc.
I am wondering what product/tool can be used to make polka dots. Lets' say I have a stamp that has a person with clothes on and I want to make their dress/shirt with polka dots. If I color the shirt red, how would I get white polka dots? I appreciate any suggestions. Thank you
Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I'm not sure if I'm putting this in the right place...Newbie...lol
I have found that it is easiest to achieve tiny dots with something like Nuvo drops or acrylic paint by squirting a small amount on a piece of paper and dipping a stylus into that spot and touching it to the paper. I have several styluses of several different sizes and can achieve perfectly sized dots every time.
If I'm doing a big something, then a pencil eraser for sure.
I would mask off the area around the shirt and stamp a dot stamp (like a small background or textures stamp) over it in Versamark and emboss with white powder.
Can you believe how many ways you can accomplish the same thing?
Mary Beth
An embossing stylus is what I typically reach for, though I've used the ends of paintbrushes and even pins to make dots. I usually use white acrylic paint or gesso.
I saw on Pinterest where someone used the head of a pin in paint to make tiny polka dots. It looked pretty slick.
Yes, yes, yes! We used to do this when I was doing ceramics 30 years ago. Different sized round glass/plastic pin heads yield different sized perfectly round dots. Dip pin head in acrylic paint and quickly tap down and lift ( be sure to tap pin head straight up and down, not at an angle).
Thanks for bringing back some wonderful memories of painting ceramic Santa’s with my ceramic buddies. Happy days and happy memories!
Use a stencil, bubble wrap, or embossing folder, ETC! There is a challenge going on right now, I beleive with the bubble wrap. But, my favorite is the White Signo Pen! It depends on the size of the dots you want too! ;)<3
A stylus works great and they come in many different sizes to make your dots the correct size for your image. A trick I learned years ago is to make the dots with some form of medium (acrylic, Nuvo, stamp ink, etc) dipping the stylus in the medium each time. After applying a few dots wipe your stylus off and continue making more dots. If you have a lot of dots and you don't wipe off the stylus from time to time the dots will become smaller. Wiping the stylus and dipping the stylus for each dot will keep all the dots uniform in size.
I bought a set of these on Amazon ages ago when someone here on SCS suggested it. Now that I think about it, I don't believe I ever ended up using them for dots. I just use them for going around the edges of die cuts when I want them raised more. (I know, that probably makes no sense at all.)
I kept meaning to pop in and say to have a look in your Dollar stores for sets of Stylus tools with the Nail Art stuff- I picked up a set in one of ours a few months ago.
Art supply stores sell a product called resist that you add before you colour or paint. So in your case you'd dab on the dots of resist with a stylus or something like it, let it dry, then colour or paint. Once dry you rub off the dots and the white paper is revealed.
A pencil eraser, nail art dot tools, dry embossing tool, clay embossing tool, toothpick, and sponge Dot tools let you make one dot at a time. Too tedious if you have a large project. I've used a sewing tracing wheel and ran it across a blob of paint to catch drops of paint on it for tiny dots or a plastic fork, I've used a dotty stencil for medium dots. You could make your own dot stencil with a piece of clear plastic packaging and your eyelet hole punch. I used to use a tool in acrylic painting class that had a detachable head with multiple points. I haven't been able to find a photo of the tool, but it was really handy. I would stamp the same stamp on two pieces of paper, cut out one to make a mask and then use a dot tool to make more than one dot at a time.
polka dots
