03-03-2016, 01:31 AM
Quote:@Eyliana thanks for the helpful crit, I will try it out. And also thanks for the link to the website, I have a look at it. What brushes do you use (haha no for real) do you ever use one of those water - tank - brushes from pentel? I feel like I am shooting myself in the foot, trying to learn to control that thing.
I started out using round brushes only, thinking that I didn't need other ones. I have the sizes 20, 12, 8, 4 0, 0000 I think. Still looking for one in between 20 and 12. And for portraits round brushes work fines and they are enough. I recently started to try landscapes and there flat brushes are also really practical to create sharp edges for rocks. I have one big flat brush (5cm) and two small ones because they came with a standard set. The big one I use for painting larger surfaces like skies, but by tilting it it can also be used for smaller objects.
It are all synthetic brushes, because they are so much cheaper than brushes from animal hair. Except the round 0000, that one was squirl hair I thought. But that is mainly because they didn't have that small brush with synthetic hairs. I use the really tiny one only for details in the portraits to finish up. It is too tiny to do anything else with it, but it holds an amazing amount of water.
I bought this weekend on brush with a water tank, because I was curious. I have this one: http://sakuraofamerica.com/images/com_me...Brush1.jpg
I did use it to make those swatches: http://pre06.deviantart.net/7638/th/pre/...9tfqlh.jpg
That worked pretty nice, because you can control the water amount pretty good which made it a lot easier to get an equal amount of water on each swatch. I haven't used it for other paintings though, but I can imagine it can be a bit tricky to press the water reservoir and painting at the same time. I'll have to try :).
I think it is easier to get started with normal brushes, figure out how much water you need to paint surfaces or shades of that color. And always have some kitchen paper at hand to get rid of excess water on the brush or painting. If you are struggling to control try to make flat washes, gradient washes, cubes or those swatches work as well. It is boring stuff, but it is good for brush control.