May 5, 2014

BRUSHWORK  and EDGES


Why is brushwork important?

It determines the "look" of the painting which is part of your style.  Helps you create a painting that has soft and hard edges. 

Gives your painting variety.  Probably lots of other reasons. 


PRACTICE:
Use  your brushes in different ways. Use both bristle brush and soft brush to makes as many different  shapes as possible:  strait lines, wide lines, dots, etc., etc.

USE ALL PARTS of BRUSH

Flat side of brush
Corners
Edge

With bristle and  soft brush

load the brush
drag the brush
lay the paint on thickly


thin paint
thick paint

use light pressure
use heavy pressure

Terms to know:

pentimento-  scrape off the top layer of the painting and what is remaining will be a soft version of whatever you were painting.  Often it looks better than what was there and that is because  the edges are soft which is the way the eye sees and, therefore is it pleasing to look at. 

scumbling- use opaque paint to paint over the underpainting and let parts of it show through.

glazing- mix TRANSPARENT  paint with medium and paint over a layer that has dried.  For example if you paint over a dry layer of blue with a glaze of yellow, the final layer will look green.

This painting shows a variety of edges.