Brushes, Surfaces, and Palettes
Brushes
Finger painting may have been your first painting method, but it’s too messy for acrylic paint; therefore, brushes naturally come in handy when applying your paint to surfaces. Brushes keep your hands out of the paint by using a handle attached to hairs by a metal tube-like covering called a ferrule. You dip a brush into the paint to cover about half the hair. Take care to avoid dipping into paint as high as the ferrule, it’s harder to clean. And cleaning is the name of the game when it comes to brushes; after paint dries in the hairs, especially around the ferrule, it ruins the shape of the brush. Finally, be sure to thoroughly dry your cleaned brushes; drops of water clinging to the ferrule can drip onto your painting when you least expect it.
Finger painting may have been your first painting method, but it’s too messy for acrylic paint; therefore, brushes naturally come in handy when applying your paint to surfaces. Brushes keep your hands out of the paint by using a handle attached to hairs by a metal tube-like covering called a ferrule. You dip a brush into the paint to cover about half the hair. Take care to avoid dipping into paint as high as the ferrule, it’s harder to clean. And cleaning is the name of the game when it comes to brushes; after paint dries in the hairs, especially around the ferrule, it ruins the shape of the brush. Finally, be sure to thoroughly dry your cleaned brushes; drops of water clinging to the ferrule can drip onto your painting when you least expect it.
More about acrylic painting in the next part, so stay tuned!
Get a handle on it
Brush handles come in two sizes: long and short. You can use either length of handle when painting with acrylics; it’s merely a matter of preference. A long handle is a good choice for painters who like to hold the back end of the brush, fully extending their arm and painting from a standing position. A long handle also makes it easier to step back and view the painting from more of a distance. A short handle is easier to paint with while sitting down at a painting lying flat on a table. You can get two kinds of paintbrush handles: wood or plastic. Wood is the more common material; you can get brushes that have plastic handles, but they’re usually lower quality. Wood handles are nice but can disintegrate if you leave them in water. I have favorite brushes in each category. Some handles have a chiseled end opposite the hairs that’s good for scraping and drawing in the paint (called scraffito). You can scrape with any other tool as well,
but having a chisel-ended brush is just so easy when your brush flips over to have a chisel end that does the job.
Hair today, gone tomorrow
You may notice two distinct kinds of hairs on brushes: soft and stiff. Stiff bristles are best for manipulating thick paint. They often leave brush stroke marks; think of Vincent Van Gogh’s style, those marks were left by stiff brushes. Soft hairs are better for detail and blending because they don’t leave such visible stroke marks. The stiff brushes have the light-colored hairs. Both soft and stiff brushes come in natural and synthetic varieties: Natural hairs: Natural brush bristles come from animals, the stiff bristle brushes are made from the bristly hairs of a boar. That’s right; you’re painting your masterpieces with the coat of a wild pig. The hairs on soft brushes typically come from the sable, a mink-like creature that lives mainly in Russia. Natural brushes can be very expensive but are of exceptional quality.
Synthetic hairs
Manufacturers have figured out some pretty nifty synthetic knock-offs. The reward for artists is that the price is right and the quality is not compromised. It’s a win-win for everyone: You get to keep more of your hard-earned money, and the animals get to keep their hair. Acrylic paint is pretty hard on brushes. Even if you keep them clean, acrylic has a way of stubbornly attaching to hairs and handles. For this reason I recommend using synthetic brushes rather than the very expensive natural hair brushes. The final painting won’t show what price your brushes were.
Get in shape (shaped brushes, that is)
You’ll also notice a vast variety of shaped brushes. Every time an artist needs a specific kind of stroke, some manufacturer creates a brush specifically for that stroke, in hopes, naturally, of selling more brushes. Some shaped brushes are quite useful, but more are gimmicky. You do need some basics: For example, flats (which have hairs squashed along a row) and rounds
(which have a full, round arrangement of hairs on the tip) are essential. You may find other shapes that you really like and that save you time while painting. I, for one, must have a liner brush. This brush has longer hairs than a normal brush. Not surprisingly, a liner brush makes long, thin lines good for such things as tree branches, grass, and slats in fences.
Get in shape (shaped brushes, that is)
You’ll also notice a vast variety of shaped brushes. Every time an artist needs a specific kind of stroke, some manufacturer creates a brush specifically for that stroke, in hopes, naturally, of selling more brushes. Some shaped brushes are quite useful, but more are gimmicky. You do need some basics: For example, flats (which have hairs squashed along a row) and rounds
(which have a full, round arrangement of hairs on the tip) are essential. You may find other shapes that you really like and that save you time while painting. I, for one, must have a liner brush. This brush has longer hairs than a normal brush. Not surprisingly, a liner brush makes long, thin lines good for such things as tree branches, grass, and slats in fences.
