Light painting tools can be expensive, but they don't have to be. You can make your own and create some fascinating effects.
You don't need expensive cameras to try light painting either. Most mobile phones have a light painting/long exposure setting although you'll need a tripod of some sort to hold the phone steady. If the phone (or camera) moves during the photograph the results will be blurry.
If your phone has the setting (or your camera does), use a 2 second shutter delay. This stops the picture wobbling from your hitting the button to start the exposure.
Wear black. Wearing black makes you invisible so long as you don't get in between the camera and the light source.
An example of the things you can create with a little imagination? The image above was created with nothing more than bottle lights taped to a bin bag holder hoop (used for litter collection). The bottle lights have a small battery pack. The whole thing cost under £20 to make.
How to make the worm hole effect? Set your phone onto the light painting option in its camera settings (it may be called something else, but it allows you to do long exposures). Place the hoop over the phone, then start the picture running and pull the lit hoop away from the camera. If you're using a camera, the camera should have a bulb mode setting.
Don't let your imagination stop there. Make giant mushroom stalks, spiral light columns, you're only limited by your imagination.
You can use LEDs, torches EL wire, sparklers, lasers and just about any light source to make light paintings.