This is my response for how to use up the little ‘not much use for’ acrylic left over bits when unpacking Wild Gears.

it’s my first rain stick and I am quite happy with it. The acrylic pieces work really well, much lighter than seeds/pebbles.

I will make another one and will use more internal sticks and hopefully the acrylic will fall much slower.

A rainstick is an Australian Aboriginal percussion instrument that sounds like rain when you turn it one way or the other. Traditionally, it’s made from a dried cactus stick, with the thorns removed, turned around and pounded into the stick. The seeds, beans or pebbles inside knock against the thorns as they fall, making a tinkling sound.

Shop Wild Gears at this link.

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Watercolour paper stretches when wet, so needs to be taped down on a flat surface like a board. A better tape than what I’m using (beige masking tape or green painter’s tape) is gummed paper tape. You can buy artist’s tape or, apparently, the tape used by butchers. I need to get some, and perfect my stretching skills.

There are many other watercolour techniques to explore for creating beautiful backgrounds. Just do a search on YouTube.

Shop Wild Gears at this link.

Meanwhile, here are some videos of pieces that I’ve done:

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Then the fun began. I have to say I was surprised at how much I got into it. At first I wanted to give each “square” (never really square) a different colour from its neighbour as in a patchwork quilt. Then my sister Pam visited. She found a human-like figure in one of the designs, and brought it out with her colour choices and thickened some lines….

Well, duh! She showed me that you can take this much farther, if you have a true artist’s eye. Colour outside the lines!

Anyway, here are some examples that I’ve done. If you find this inspiring, you can buy my colouring pages right here. Give me encouragement and I’ll make more!

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You can buy very nice blank cards and envelopes, pre-cut and folded, and draw designs on them. I found the Strathmore brand in an art supply shop, and I’ve seen them in office supply stores as well, or you can find Strathmore cards and envelopes on Amazon.

There are many different sizes of cards and a variety of paper types to choose from. Some have a textured surface, some are made of recycled fibers, some have “deckled” edges where the fibres hang out as if they were torn, as you can see in the photos. They all work. There are different colours too, from white to black. Some gel pens will mark on black.

I used metallic gel pens for most of these cards. They’re from an inexpensive set of gel pens I got on Amazon, though you could get them anywhere.

I added a matching design on the front and/or back of each envelope as well, making sure to leave room for the address. It was hard to draw over the deckle on the flap of the envelope, although it looks nice.

I’ve been pleased to use my cards for birthdays and thank-you’s, and they would also be suitable for sympathy cards. Even for Christmas, especially using stars. Here is an old video of mine on how to make a 5-pointed star with Spirograph. (That video now has 108,000 views and 525 likes. Wow, just wow.)

Shop Wild Gears at this link.

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Dhaval noted that Spirograph (or Wild Gears) would be a great tool for creating rangoli patterns. Looking at the examples below, don’t you agree?

If anyone makes a Spirograph rangoli, please take a picture and share it with us!

Read more about rangoli here [Wikipedia]. Dhaval’s Art Blog is here.

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It’s 39 pages of vintage goodness, including many patterns you can make with the non-super Spirograph. Plus it has ideas for taking them further into artistic creations of your own.

Many of the designs are familiar, but there are some that I don’t remember from any English-language manuals. Perhaps they were part of some of the earlier Denys Fisher versions out of England.

Even if you don’t read any of the languages, illustrations and the color-coded text can guide you in creating the designs yourself.

A particular charm is that the patterns are obviously hand-drawn, complete with misalignments and splotches.

Apparently Spirograph was distributed in Europe by Meccano France S.A., as shown by the trademark at the bottom of the document.

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I’d never heard of edible markers, but apparently they exist. And Amber Spiegel, a cookie artist in Beacon NY is not afraid to use them with Spirograph!

Here is her video. You can learn more on her website at SweetAmbs.com where she has lots of tutorials about decorating the most gorgeous cookies you’ve ever seen.

If you try making Spirograph cookies and are even halfway successful, take a picture of the best ones, and tell us what worked for you and what didn’t. If I get a few photos I’ll make a post about it.

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Ariella Zwillinger in art class with her latest spiro montage

I don’t think many of the “tots” who ever used the old Spirotot toy – a basic version of Spirograph designed for smaller children – ever made patterns like this. It requires mastery not typical of 5-year-olds.

Ariella Zwillinger from Maryland, who sent photos of a Spirograph collage she made last winter, has produced another Spirograph masterpiece, this one made using a vintage Spirotot that was in her basement.

You can see how she carefully cut out the patterns and arranged them overlapping slightly in a grid formation. They’re all about the same size, and each is drawn with at least a couple of similar colors. The patterns make it look like there are more than two colors involved.

Another awesome job by Ariella. I hope this inspires you to do more with Spirograph!

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Technical details: I scanned the image and cropped it to be square and centered. I duplicated the first layer and rotated it one degree, duplicated the new layer, rotated, and repeated until I had 72 layers. There are 360 degrees in a circle, and since there are 5 vanes in the pinwheel, and 360 ÷ 5 = 72, I needed 72 layers to make it turn 1/5th of the way around.

In the Animation window, I made each layer start one frame later than the previous one. It looked like a staircase when I was done.

The animation goes 1/5 of the way around, then repeats infinitely, so it only appears to spin all the way around. Each layer is a frame and it runs at a standard 30 frames per second, which looks smooth to the eye.

Because it’s hand-drawn and not totally perfect, there’s a bit of a jump at the juncture, which seems to have a lot to do with how Photoshop rendered the rotated layers, as well as the fact that the image is hand-drawn and not perfect.

Staring at the pinwheel then looking away at the text makes the text seem to spin – for me, anyway.

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