The Right Brush For The Right Job

Every painter has their favorite paint brush that they are most comfortable using. However, each brush has a specific purpose and makes the job easier if used. No matter what brush, it is important to practice using it and become more familiar with the brush stroke that each brush produces.

Princeton Script Liner Brush

As Casey always mentions, it’s more about the pressure used than the actual brush, but let’s take a look at a few of her favorites.

There are 4 main brushes that we always set out for our painters: script liner, flat, angle and round brush. Casey doesn’t usually give sizes of brushes only because every painter is unique with what they are comfortable with using.

Brush Types

The Script Liner brush is an elongated round brush that has very long bristles and can be rolled to a fine point. The script liner brush is able to hold more paint and water which allows the artist to make fine details and can make a line narrow at the end as you lift off the canvas and the pressure. The script liner brush is excellent for tree limbs, highlights or adding a line back into your design.

The Flat brush is a brush that has a square or flat end to its bristles where the Angle brush is cut at an angle and has a longer point on one of the ends. Either one of these brushes are good for spreading paint quickly and evenly across your canvas. Either the flat or the angle brush can be used to incorporate into your painting techniques such as blending for a sunset or an ombre effect.

The Round brush is the brush that we call “the long pointy brush”. This brush has shorter bristles than the script liner brush but is still good for getting into smaller spaces or making some details. We sometimes use the round brush to make the variation in color in the center of a flower or make buds on a tree. It is also useful to get into the smaller sections of a pumpkin or make leaves as shown in our Fall Pumpkin Tutorial.

Specialty Brushes

Dugato Fan Brush

A few of the other specialty brushes that we like to use are the filbert, fan, and rake brushes that each are used to make the job easier when creating different aspects of your painting. The Filbert brush is often used with a dry brush technique to spread a very little amount of paint in circular motions. This brush has a rounded dome end to its bristles. This brush is used to make fluffy clouds, realistic fog like in The Witch painting or bubbling water like we incorporated into The Nighttime Waterfall painting.

The Fan brush has bristles that are spread out like a fan. The fan brush is used to create the realistic layers as seen in pine trees and also can be used to make other types of trees such as a palm tree. The Rake brush can also be used to make palm leaves. The Rake brush is similar to the flat brush however it has a distinct look to its ends— it looks like someone has snipped into the end of a flat brush to create a un-uniformed jagged end. When utilizing the rake brush, it is important to add water to your paint. The rake brush is very useful in making grass, beards as seen on many of our gnomes, fur on animals as well as the randomness seen on the inside of our sunflowers.