Tip of the month – February 2008

Recently, I was in an art supply store looking for pigment for a work that I was painting. A shopper approached me and inquired if she had chosen the correct brush. Rather than ask what she wished to use it for, I held the brush and made some brush movements with it. She was pleased. It was what she was hoping. I had made the movements that she had seen on a watercolor demonstration on television.

After this chance meeting. I thought about my personal brush choices. My painting brushes are an extension of my hand. There are times when I am applying paint to paper or canvas that the brush and the hand are one.

I hold the brush loosely and higher on the handle. If my hand were to be tapped, the brush would fall.

Holding my brush in this manner allows me to work in a relaxed way for a longer period of time.

Like most artists, I do have brush preferences.

Among the many brushes that I own, these are the brushes that I use more consistently for all my water media paintings. I have to replace them every few years because of the wear and tear. The natural hairs hold a lot of wet pigment. I do not focus on the delicate brush hairs as I paint; I concentrate on the painting process.

Every artist has one shape of brush that he/she prefers. Most of my brushes are rounds.

My shapes are organic in my paintings. I do have flats – a 2 inch, a I inch, a 1/2 inch and a 1/4 inch flat.

These I use for straight edges and straight fine lines.

When working with the round brush, I use its point for calligraphy or its full belly to fill in larger organic shapes.

Brushes such as the fan brush are for special effects-

feathering for blades of grass, jabbing for coniferous trees.

But most of the time, I use my favorite regular brushes and a spray bottle filled with water to achieve these effects.

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