How to Choose your Paint Brushes

How to Choose your Paint Brushes How to Select the Best Paint Brushes for Painting ChaptersThe Anatomy of a Paint BrushPaint Brush BristlesBest Paint Brushes by MediumChoosing Paintbrushes According to TechniqueHow to Clean Paint Brushes?Whether you are a building painter, an artisan painter or a painter of canvases, you may have run into the same dilemma: which is the best brush for your medium?Different media â€" watercolors, acrylics, oils and gouache all require different types of brushes.Furthermore, each style of painting demands its own technique   and specific tools - brushes foremost among them.From wide brush strokes for landscapes and still lifes, to the meticulous dabs required for portraits and otherwise drawing people, each brush is selected based on bristle type, brush tip, and more: the handle, and the weight and size.Information on the Internet and art magazines can be boggling: so many brushes to choose from, with no real guide as to which brush would be best suited to what medium, and hardly no information on how to select proper size or tip.Perh aps these art supply vendors expect everyone to learn these distinctions in art school or drawing class.Maybe you've not attended any drawing tutorials. Maybe you are picking up a brush for the first time because you feel so inspired.If that is your case, Superprof now dons an artist's pinafore and beret to give you step by step instructions about brushes for painting portraits, or any other masterpiece, in all media.Find different drawing lessons online here.delicate areasused to learn how to draw eyes, for example, or adding definition to human face drawings.The detail round is great for short strokes. In learning how to draw hands, you may use such a brush for lines around knuckles, for example.Flat brush is good for bold colour strokes on large canvases, and filling wide spaces.The angular flat brush is good for filling in corners or making curved strokes. They can be used like flat brushes.The bright is a flat brush with short hairs that curve inward at the tip, good for thick, heavy colour applied in short strokes.the Filbert is an oval-shaped brush what works well to blend and shade. If you have just learned how to draw a rose, you may use a filbert to refine your shading technique.The Fan has spread out hairs, good for smoothing, blending and feathering colours.This type of brush gives excellent texturing effect if you are painting clouds, trees or creating a seascape.With all of this variety in painting tools, don't you feel pity for the digital artist who renders art on a virtual canvas with nothing but a drawing tablet?Consider investing in an assortment of brushes suitable for all media Source: Pixabay Credit: WerbelFabrik not for the movement they represent, but for their medium: oil, acrylic and watercolour, respectively.Naturally, the type of brushes they used accorded to their preferred medium.Portraiture in WatercolourTo paint a portrait â€" or anything else with watercolours, you should use a fine brush with a short handle.You may already kno w that from your drawing lessons, but still, you wonder: would a sable brush be called for, or could a squirrel brush suit?Squirrel hairs are very fine, which makes it easy to achieve various effects, using the same brush.With a bit of pressure, you can use the belly of the brush to make a broader stroke. Or, you can back off, using only the tip: a great way to contour or outline.These natural hair brushes are perfect for watercolours because they are very fragile, and should not be cleaned with solvents.Find the best drawing lessons here.Acrylic PaintingBy their very composition, acrylic paints damage natural fibre paint brushes. Therefore, it is best to use synthetic brushes when expressing yourself in this medium.Made of nylon or perlon, they provide a soft yet resistant fibres; a more advanced method to transmit colour to canvas.This type of brush (and the medium itself) makes for good line drawing, and could even substitute for a graphite pencil  or other type of pencil if you are doing any crosshatching or ink drawing.Oil PaintingSo much work goes into preparing both your canvas and your brushes, to work with this medium.Often, the artist must retouch his work in order to create a perfect still life or portrait painting in oil.Purists gravitate toward hog brushes or ox hair, both for economic reasons and because of the finesse they give to the portrait.The filbert stands as the brush of choice for many oil painters.Of course, if you are creating a digital painting to share on  an interactive whiteboard, brushes of any type matter not at all!The Filbert brush is the brush of choice for oil painting Source: Pixabay Credit: NietjuhChoosing Paintbrushes According to TechniqueA rock guitarist may secretly prefer a folk guitar, while a gypsy jazz guitarist would swear on the acoustics of only Gypsy guitars.When choosing art materials, your mind follows the same reasoning: which brush would best match my technique?For subject matter with a lot of detail, if you like to sketch or draw animals and then paint them, for example, you should opt for a short handled brush with soft bristles.If you are in a Drawing for Beginners class, for instance, you may have already experienced the advantages that proximity to your canvas can bring: tighter control of your brush strokes, and more flexibility in your wrist.And why would you want a paint brush with soft bristles? Doesn't that seem like a good way to miss a stroke or make unsightly blotches?Painting with firm bristles does provide the advantage of control.However, you may leave visible brush strokes on your life drawing or even in the shadows you create.You may even scratch your canvas or watercolor paper!If your art drawing has a lot of detail, you should probably choose from the array of synthetic hair brushes to render your work.By contrast, large swaths of uniform color would best be rendered with a long-handled, hard bristle brush.You can get a better perspective on your work by grasping th e brush toward the end of the handle. This permits you a bit of distance, to take in the whole of your art.The art of oil painting demands thick-haired brushes to effectively convey your dense and heavy colour to canvas.For watercolors, you need a softer brush, because the medium itself is very fluid.Acrylic paints are softer than oils but thicker than watercolors, so you have a greater range of firmness to work with.But the brushes you choose should be chemically resistant: hence the earlier recommendation for nylon brushes.The artist who specialises in pencil drawing has the same quandary as you, a painter. S/he must choose pencil and paper carefully, to suit his drawing technique.Check out these drawing lessons for kids!Choosing the Correct Drawing Tools and BrushesYour paintbrush is a magic wand for realising face drawing, perspective drawing... anything you are learning to draw!Of course, we're exaggerating. There are no such things as magic wands.Still, we maintain: those inst ruments used to transfer your vivid imagination into visual art will become an extension of you.Once you've mastered how to express light and shadow, contour drawing... everything beyond stick figures, you will find you can realistically draw something, and then fill in those lines to render your scene almost three dimensional, for a beautiful work of art just ready for framing.It all comes down to using the right brush.Storing your brushes upright when wet could cause them to warp and bend Source: Pixabay Credit: StocksnapHow to Clean Paint Brushes?Unlike the digital drawing artist, who does not need to clean much of anything pertaining to his medium, you must take proper  care of your art materials.Cleaning your brushes, just like an art professional does, will prolong the life and utility of those tools.Once you have framed your canvas, or if you are just done for the day, you must make effort to clean and preserve your equipment.Here are a few tips on how to draw every last bit of paint from your brushes' fibres:Remove as much paint as possible, either by wiping your brush repeatedly (for oils and acrylics), or by running them under water.For watercolours, you can massage the brush head until water runs clean.If the paint has already hardened, work the bristles gentlyWash your brushes in warm, soapy waterWork the brushes gently and carefully.Rinse in cool, clear water, and then pat dry.You should lay  your brushes on a flat surface, in a cool, dry area away from heat.Following these methods, you will be able to pick up those brushes the next day to fill in your sketches, practicing textures and blending shades  anew.