Big Brush Painting

If you’ve been following some of the last few OrbisPlanis blogs, then you may have noticed that I am on a path to overcome art inertia and keep on a steady art path, so to speak. I talked about a few ways to rise above and beyond Art Slump (AS) and how visiting an art museum, or in my case, a fine art fair, may help to keep you on your one true art journey.

Today, I’ll tell you about something else I’m doing. I’m practicing painting with big brushes only. Now this may sound silly and/or elementary to you, but if you have never tried it, don’t knock it, OK?

It’s one of the many things you can do to keep innovating your painting style. Of course, it may not be “you,” and if that’s the case, then you should go try something else, no questions asked.

However, in my reading about how to paint loose, impressionistically, painterly or whatever else you may like to call it, painting with big brushes was consistently discussed as one of the key things to do. So I thought, why not? (So you know, I'm talking about watercolor here rather than acrylic.)

Beforehand, my largest brushes were ones I rarely used—something called an Oval Mop, a 1-inch (.76cm) rather flat, soft brush by Loew-Cornell and another big, soft, flat brush, a No. 16 by ProStroke, also about 1 inch across.  I had only used them for painting skies in watercolor, you know, when you need big, long strokes of paint that you try not to get streaky. I rarely used them because, frankly, I had better luck with a foam brush.

Any, I digress. My only other brush of any size was a No. 4 Round by Winsor & Newton, which is not very big at all. I had not needed larger brushes because my stroke style was rather short and choppy with dashes of paint, or I simply used them to fill in larger areas of paint (other than the skies mentioned above).

Down to my nearest art supply store I went and purchased three brushes: No.12 and No. 14 Rounds by Qualita and a huge No. 36 Round by Creative Mark. If you think that’s a big gap between a No. 14 and a No. 36, you may be right. I wasn’t sure exactly what to get, so erred on the conservative side. I can always go back.

I also read to practice a whole lot to get the feel of these larger brushes. So that’s what I’ve been doing as you can see in today’s image, which, if nothing else, is abstract anyway. I’ll keep on practicing and actually paint something, and then I’ll let you know how it’s going.

Happy Painting!