When I first started doing this art I first used traditional art marking tools. The tool of choice in the beginning was the ink pen, a quill shaft with speedball nibs. This is what I was using the night I first began to draw automatically. I also experimented with various brushes as this was an obvious choice. It became clear though that the mark of these tools though would dictate look of the result, mostly calligraphic in nature. After a time I began to see that in order to vary the composition more than it had been I needed to use non traditional tools, but only non traditional in that they were weren't sold in art supply stores. There are all perfectly valid for making art. Every marking tool had to be invented in the first place, and usually designed for a specific application and look. Outside of that application new inventions have to be made.
An influence in this decision was viewing a work by Henri Michaux, a well known French automatic artist. I saw a density of ink that I was not able to get with calligraphy brushes. I sought to reverse engineer what sort of object could make such a mark and came upon the idea of using a root which had been slightly crushed. This seemed to work well. Although I have never found out what tools Michaux used in his works I would say this incident is the only direct influence of an artist's work I have taken, the nature of my work being spontaneous and not imitative.
I began to experiment with various objects and materials, grass, sticks, weeds, fabric, root systems, steel wool, feathers, reeds, glass containers, bark, wire brushes, etc., whatever seemed possible. I even once painted with a half desiccated worm I found on my door step. The imprint of the rings on its tail can be seen in the drawing, which greatly disturbed me when I finished it. I found each item had its own mark and in this way I could create a vocabulary of marks by choosing different tools. As I had little choice on the placement of marks on the picture plane this expanded my possibilities in composition.
When I began do canvases I had to invent objects which would work for oil and acrylic paints. Up until then I worked mostly with ink on paper. I found that eucalyptus bark worked well as a kind of quill for oil paint if I mixed the paint to the right constancy. I still used bunched weeds for wide stains of color. Foam and balls of bunched string also worked well in running paint over a longer path than most brushes could. I also constructed brushes with boar bristle and plant fiber that would hold both thick and thin paint at the same time so that the stroke wouldn't come out dry looking but still retain enough paint for the stroke to cover a distance. Pot scrubbers were also very good on initial layers in the painting. Often I would have an idea of how I wanted a mark to look and then invent the tool to make that mark, and sometimes engineer a consistency of paint to work with it.
The tool I use almost exclusively now is the ball bead chain. I experimented with this early on, getting the idea from seeing billboards up close in the Paris Metro platforms. With this I can get a multitude of marks on each pass. I can also get a smaller mark than with any other tool I have tried.
Here are some photos of tools I have used.
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