You paint with WHAT??
 

Sometimes I feel like painting with my fingers, paper towels, Q-tips, wrong end of the brush, discarded dental equipment, outdated credit cards, rubber bands, elbows and butter knives.:)

Does anybody else use oddball things beyond the traditional brushes and palette knife?

My Cat....yes, my cat..
 

I did an illustration once where I needed a realistic cat's paw. Well, I called Indigo, my black cat over and picked her up, dipped her paw in acrylic paint and pressed it to the surface. It worked wonderfully. Took her into the bathroom and cleaned up her paw. She was quite the good sport about it. :)

Speaking of cat painting, my old black kitty was fascinated with the movement of my watercolor brush while I was working on a piece many years ago. (It also happened to be a painting of him.)

He took a swipe at the moving brush and caused me to make a loose wide swath across the area I'd been working on. Turned out it was just right and I left it as it was.

As far as other painting tools, I often blend with my finger or a paper towel. My left pinky fingernail makes a great built-in mahlstick. And there is a Seattle artist who paints spectacular, richly colored landscapes with the edge of a cut up credit card.

I recently made some convincing "hair" detail using an acupuncture needle because I couldn't get a line thin enough with my smallest brush. Another time I painted all the fabric detail on a rug using a chunk of kneaded rubber eraser fashioned into the shape I wanted.

Here's an early Rembrandt self portrait from the Rijksmuseum website (my favorite site, other than SOG!)

On the closeup of the hair, it looks like he used the back end of a brush.

Here's the closeup.

I picked up a battery operated nail polishing tool with different buffer attachments. They create interesting textures on boards and come in handy when creating textured clothing.

I am looking for an extremely fine brush. I have Windsor Newtont's 000, but even though it is failry thin, it does not offer me the control I am looking for. Do miniaturist have even smaller brushes? Can anyhone recommend a stiffer fine brush?

Welll-

I saw a collection once of miniature (tiny!) Chinese porcelains with scenes painted on them, with figures. Was told that the facial features were brushed on with a single eyelash. Would that do?

Found the best tools for me to paint drapery are my fingers. I can intuit the direction of the folds better than with a brush.

Tom,

Painting with an eyelash must be extremely tedious. Besides lashes bend too easily. How can these miniaturists possibly control their strokes?

That's all I know about it. These porcelains are TINY, so "stroke" is a relative term.