Now that you’ve amassed the necessary supplies, let’s talk about how to use some of them, starting with paint brushes. It may be tempting to jump straight in to making a painting, but not knowing how to use the tools will likely lead to a lot of frustration and a higher likelihood you’ll throw in the towel before giving painting a real chance. You wouldn’t try to build a house without a foundation, right? (Or, let’s be real, hiring a contractor to do it.)

Let’s take a look at a few brush basics and techniques that will help you achieve your desired results.

Choosing a Brush

It may seem obvious you will need to switch brush types/sizes depending on what you are painting, but one thing I’ve noticed from teaching new painters is how often people are unwilling to switch between brushes while painting. Instead of fighting with the wrong brush, it’s important to figure out which size/type is appropriate for what you are doing at that exact moment. For me this often translates to switching between five different brushes in the span of five minutes, with one in my right hand, three in my left, and searching frantically for the brush I absentmindedly placed behind my ear. (Ideally, you should be leaving used brushes in your jar of water since acrylic dries fast, but no one is perfect.) Luckily though, if your current brush doesn’t cooperate, acrylic is incredibly forgiving and you can always paint over something you don’t like.

Since you will likely be working with mostly round and flat brushes of varying sizes in the beginning, I’ll be focusing on those.

In general, flat brushes are good for:

  • Applying paint over a large area (larger brushes)
  • Blending color over a large area, like a sky for instance (I’ll be going over blending in the next post)
  • Sharp lines and hard edges (smaller brushes)

Round brushes are good for:

  • Soft edges
  • Rounded shapes (surprise, surprise)
  • Small details and thin lines (small brushes)

These aren’t hard and fast rules and you may find particular brush types work better for you for certain tasks. A lot of it is based on preference, and even more is based on how you use it.

Brush Techniques

Before attempting to paint something specific, it’s a good idea to practice making marks with different brushes and get a sense of how they feel. The way you hold a brush, how much water you use, and how much pressure you apply, all affect brush strokes. Below are some things to consider when using a brush.

Holding a Brush

The best way to hold a brush is however you hold a pencil. This allows for the most control and dexterity, and will feel the most natural to you. You should also hold a paint brush close to the base of the handle to aid with precision. This can allow you to rest your pinky against the canvas to steady your hand while working on small or fine details.

If you’re like me, however, and hold pencils like a second-grader, you can just rest your whole palm on the canvas if need be (as long as the paint is dry).

Using Water

Water is very important when using acrylic paint. It is rare you will want to use it straight from the tube or with a dry brush unless you are specifically looking to use a dry brush technique. (I will touch on this later.) In general, you will want to add a bit of water to your paint and use a wet brush to apply it smoothly. You can do this either by giving your paint a quick spritz or two with a spray bottle or dipping you brush in your jar of water a few times and swirling it into your paint. Typically, you’ll want your paint about the consistency of yogurt (Think regular Yoplait, not fancy, thick Greek yogurt.) For thinner lines, you want your paint to be a more milky consistency.

It is also important to continually add more water to your paint and dip your brush back into the jar every so often. One of the most common frustrations for new painters is getting fuzzy, thick lines from trying to use paint that is too dried out. If you start to notice fuzzy marks and inconsistent application as you are applying paint, this is usually a good indicator that you need to use more water.

You want to look out for overwatering your paint as well. If you add too much water, the binders start to break down and the paint will run down your canvas. Unless you are looking for a drip effect, you want to avoid making your paint too inky. If you do start to get unintentional drips, you can dampen a paper towel and usually wipe most of it away before it dries.

Check out the video below to see what results you will get with different consistencies.

Varying Pressure

Also important to what kind of brush strokes you create is how much pressure you are applying. When you are covering large areas, you can load your brush up with a lot of paint and use heavy, broad stroke for quick results.

If you are looking for more delicate lines however, you can achieve this by applying very little pressure and lightly grazing the canvas with the very tip of your brush. You can also vary the amount of pressure you apply to taper off brush strokes and add variety to line thickness. This is useful when painting blades of grass for instance.

For really fine lines, you’ll want to use a small round brush with fairly watered down paint and very light pressure. It is also helpful to roll the bristles of your brush in the paint to get rid of the excess and bring it to a fine point.

The video below demonstrates this technique, as well as how brushstrokes can be manipulated by differing pressure.

Keep in mind, these things take practice and will improve over time. It requires a good deal of dexterity, control, and familiarity with paint consistency to achieve the results you want, especially when it comes to fine detail. And it will become more intuitive the more times you experiment. Even so, I often still test out paint consistency and brush strokes on my palette or my hand or wherever before applying it to my canvas while working on a painting. And I often still make mistakes I need to cover up. But the most important thing to remember is anything can be fixed!

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