Brushes : so many kinds.

[janinep7]

To respond another way to Clifton’s question –

Probably fewer brushes than you think. You can get by with just one medium size round that will point nicely and carry a good amount of paint. It also depends on what style of painter you are – I always think I’m going to use 12 different brushes to get all different kinds of effects and brushstrokes in every painting, but at the end of the day, I almost never change brushes once I start painting. Still this does not in anyway diminish my need and desire to keep trying new brushes or keep ordering from Jackson’s!!!! (Damn that “free” worldwide shipping! That has got to be the best marketing scheme of the century.)

At some point, I decided I don’t really care how many I use or need. I love them the way some women love Jimmy Choo shoes. They make me happy and I will eventually use them all and use them all up. They don’t go bad and they don’t take up a lot of space or require feeding, walking, poop scooping or watering.

Life is short! Carpe diem.

[Yorky Administrator Ormskirk]

In my “brickwork” phase I used to use an assortment of small acrylic flats to get the square brick shape.

Doug

We must leave our mark on this world

[janinep7]

That’s beautiful, Doug! Love the red phone box, too.

I was thinking of another artist who just uses two brushes… John Hoar. He uses a large squirrel oval wash brush and a thin dagger brush to paint everything.

Here is a snippet of one of his DVDs, showing him using his brushes:
https://www.townhousefilms.co.uk/simplifying-watercolour-with-john-hoar

[briantmeyer]

I would add that EVERY mark should be different in your painting, repetition is simply boring. The other thing is brevity helps, overworking an area also makes it go bleh. Using just one brush is a habit, but its predictable, you want the eye of the viewer to not be able to predict/summarize, every part they see is ideally a surprise ending. Develop habits that create variation in as many ways as you can.

Some are washes, ie large puddles, these don’t care what brush, but you should use a brush big enough to do them in minimal trips to your palette.

If doing plants, each should be a different green, with minor difference between. Think of green like a color wheel, blue green, purple gray green, red green ( broen ), orange green, yellow green – and juxtapose these greens with their compliments – is f its an orange green mix, put it adjacent to the blue sky. Think of greens like its a brown, its meant to be dull and let it bleed into the earth.

If doing earth, same thing, tans are purple yellow, burnt sienna is orange blue, burnt umber is red green, vary them and use compliments, behind that yellow dress make the dirt purple leaning tan.

Blacks same thing, blues, purples, greens, all can be hidden in them.

For actual marks, their shapes, at first just learn every thing a round can do. Hold it sideways, at an angle, grab it by the hairs and spread it out into a fan. One thing I do is think of words and write hidden things into the painting using cursive and printing, i don’t do this to be legible, quite the opposite, but to vary my marks. After you can’t think of more that a round can do, start learning other shapes. I have, as practice, done entire paintings with a 1.5” mottler, its corners act like rounds, but just do that to get yourself out of habits. Watch videos and demos and watch the brish, learn sumi techniques too, these just widen your mark making ideas.

Constantly vary size and brush type. Even if you can do every mark different with a single round, varying sizes and shapes increases the unpredictability in your marks.

It is habit where you have lots of brushes and you do a painting with a single brush. Make an effort to learn how to makes lots of different types of marks with each brush, and every so often switch. Vary color too constantly. Start with big brushes too, and only use teeny ones at the end.

I have heard that painting is scored like golf, the fewest strokes wins. Learn which brushes work best for each hole, there is a reason they have caddy’s hand the golfer different clubs thru the game.

Brian T Meyer
My Site - Instagram[/url] - Facebook

Useful links: Watercolor FAQs - Watercolor Handbook - Handprint - Listing of Watercolor Societies - Watercolor Guide (Pigment Listing)

[janinep7]

@Brian

The golf analogy is very useful for watercolor, and I like the caddy concept too.

The rest of it… whatever works for the painter is all good. Some painters only work with one or two brushes and create amazing and varied work. Others use a whole arsenal of them and also create amazing and varied work.

Work bigger to smaller is always good advice for shapes, brushes, brush marks.

But if you’ve got a brush that you feel can do it all, or at least most of it… I say even better.

Learning how to get the most out of your brushes, however many of them you decide to use in a given painting, is one of those things that you learn to do intuitively with practice. I don’t think it can be prescribed.

Potato. Po-tah-toe. Tomato. To-mah-toe. Whatever works is right.

[Clifton K Prince]

I’ve been re-reading several of BrianTMeyer’s posts about brushes lately, and see that he has been recommending that if you get a flat, it’s better to get the more belly-full flats. I see the Icon Mottler name comes up several times. I have a few flat brushes (well, I don’t know if they’re technically “flat” or “bright” or “square” or “wash”) but end up with a consistent problem, that they leave a rectilinear line in any wash. All of them. Whatever method I use, however soft or stiff the bristles are, when I fill in a large(-ish) area, I can SEE the brush-strokes no matter HOW gentle I think I’m being to the paper. The seizing seems to take on the shape of the brush. So, unless the square-tipped brush (“flat”?) is going to be used in one single stroke to make one single rectangular or rectilinear shape (a window; a line) then I’m really afraid of the square-tipped brushes.

Certified Closet Management Engineer, Slung Watercolor Society of America

[briantmeyer]

I’ve been re-reading several of BrianTMeyer’s posts about brushes lately, and see that he has been recommending that if you get a flat, it’s better to get the more belly-full flats. I see the Icon Mottler name comes up several times. I have a few flat brushes (well, I don’t know if they’re technically “flat” or “bright” or “square” or “wash”) but end up with a consistent problem, that they leave a rectilinear line in any wash. All of them. Whatever method I use, however soft or stiff the bristles are, when I fill in a large(-ish) area, I can SEE the brush-strokes no matter HOW gentle I think I’m being to the paper. The seizing seems to take on the shape of the brush. So, unless the square-tipped brush (“flat”?) is going to be used in one single stroke to make one single rectangular or rectilinear shape (a window; a line) then I’m really afraid of the square-tipped brushes.

A edge line indicates its drying fast or you are moving slow, could be paper. Could be junk brushes.

Using flats gives your marks a distinctive style, it makes things blocky. Even in washes. This actually is appealing, looks very modern.

The artist i think of regarding using flats is craig anderson, he uses them in demos, he uses them a lot. Probably the best artist at getting rich vibrant colors, just a basic thing which he knocks out of the park even with his first mark.
http://andersonwatercolors.com/

Brian T Meyer
My Site - Instagram[/url] - Facebook

Useful links: Watercolor FAQs - Watercolor Handbook - Handprint - Listing of Watercolor Societies - Watercolor Guide (Pigment Listing)

[briantmeyer]

@Brian

Learning how to get the most out of your brushes, however many of them you decide to use in a given painting, is one of those things that you learn to do intuitively with practice. I don’t think it can be prescribed.

Potato. Po-tah-toe. Tomato. To-mah-toe. Whatever works is right.

My suggestion, you should start learning all the tools. Not just one. After you can do it all at a basic level, then focus on specialization. Its like the great abstract artists, they omitted drawing, but they could draw. Some artists this will help, it takes a lot longer to learn enough marks using just rounds, adding shapes adds more options.

A painting that says
Potato
Potato
Potato
Potato

Is less interesting than one saying
Potato
Po-tah-toe
Tomato
To-mah-toe.

I am not saying do just this, I am saying the more you put i to your work the better. A work that is more interesting is stronger than one that isn’t.

Varying marks makes a painting more interesting, sure you can do it all like seurat, all just dots, all just this, all just that, but if you use a round varying how you hold it to get different marks, how you move it. This adds more to your work.

Varying the brush shape, a blocky flat gives an entirely different style. A work done with just flats looks different. If you never tried this, well its just less options, that makes it less interesting.

My suggestion is look at the brushwork on a sorolla. In person or zoom in. From far away its basically realism, but up close the brush work is incredible. He’d use a single mark looking nothing like the subject, but look at it and it reads as the subject, No you don’t have to paint like him, but all of us would improve if we added a bit of that to our work. Our brush marks are a language too.

No you do not need good brush work, some wonderful paintings are done with just washes, but its a basic skill that you should learn, so that its there if you need it. But yeah its all choice, no artist needs to do anything, in the 70s they even got rid of being able to draw.

Brian T Meyer
My Site - Instagram[/url] - Facebook

Useful links: Watercolor FAQs - Watercolor Handbook - Handprint - Listing of Watercolor Societies - Watercolor Guide (Pigment Listing)

[Clifton K Prince]

A edge line indicates its drying fast or you are moving slow, could be paper. Could be junk brushes.

Yeah, my initial thoughts were yours exactly — could be cheap brushes or cheap paper, probably more like moving too slow (wash drying out). I’m trying to eliminate these variables as I experiment, maybe I’ll report more.

Using flats gives your marks a distinctive style, it makes things blocky. Even in washes. This actually is appealing, looks very modern.

Sure agreed. Almost this whole James Gurney video
https://youtu.be/qplDEt_WWyY
is about getting a variety of (smaller!) marks out of one (larger!) flat-tipped brush. (Are we going to call them “flat” or “bright” or “wash” or “stroke” or “aquarell” or … what?)

Certified Closet Management Engineer, Slung Watercolor Society of America

[fleurette]

Thanks for all your replies.  I have brought a kolinsky sable brush but had it for three years and never used it.  I keep thinking about waiting until my skills get better to try them out.  I know it’s silly but I am like that about my cotton paper too.

[Author]

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