Principles of painting practice

1How painters work

A painting that looks effortless is usually the result of a careful routine: the right brush for each job, a well-prepared surface, a sensible order of work, and tools cleaned at the end so that they work again tomorrow. Muralists who paint health messages on clinic walls and artists who sell their canvases in Kigali galleries all follow a routine like the one in this lesson. These principles of painting practice will make every painting you do easier and neater.

2Brushes

• Round: a pointed tip for lines, details and small areas. Press to thicken the stroke, lift to thin it.
• Flat: a square end for broad strokes, washes and straight edges; turned on its edge it makes a thin line.
• Filbert: flat with a rounded end, for soft edges and blending.
• Sizes are numbered: small numbers are small brushes. Use the largest brush that suits the area; small brushes on big areas give streaky, patchy paint.
• Hair: soft hair holds water well for watercolour; stiff bristle pushes thick paint.
• Home-made tools: tie goat hair or soft sisal fibres tightly to a stick with thread; fray the end of a twig by tapping it with a stone until the fibres separate; cut a piece of sponge; use the edge of a piece of card to scrape paint for straight lines.

3Holding and loading the brush

• Hold the brush further back on the handle for loose, free strokes, and closer to the metal ferrule for control.
• Dip only the tip of the bristles into the paint, never up to the ferrule: paint that dries inside the ferrule ruins the brush.
• Wipe the extra paint off on the edge of the palette so the brush does not drip.

4Two basic brush skills: washes

• Flat wash: one even value over a large area. Mix plenty of paint, tilt the board slightly, and paint overlapping horizontal bands from the top down, picking up the wet edge of each band with the next.
• Graded wash: strong at one end, pale at the other. Paint the first band, then add a little water (or white) to the mix before each new band.

5Preparing the surface

• Paper for wet paint must be thick, or it will buckle into waves. Tape all four edges to a board before you start and remove the tape only when the painting is dry.
• Card, cardboard and hardboard are cheap supports. Seal them first with a primer: a coat of white paint, or chalk powder mixed with glue and water. Primer stops the paint soaking in and makes colours brighter.
• Cloth such as old cotton sheeting can be stretched over a wooden frame, pinned at the back and primed.

6The order of work

1. Plan: make a small thumbnail sketch and a value plan in pencil, marking the lightest and darkest areas.
2. Draw lightly on the prepared surface with a hard pencil or a thin line of paint.
3. Big to small: block in the largest areas first (background, table, main objects) with a large brush.
4. Back to front: paint what is furthest away first, then the objects in front, so their edges lie cleanly over the background.
5. Middle values, then shades and tints to build the form, as in the last lesson.
6. Details and highlights last, with a small brush.
7. Step back every few minutes and look from two metres away.

With transparent paint (watercolour, thin washes) you must work from light to dark, saving the white paper for the lightest parts, because a light colour cannot cover a dark one. With opaque paint (poster paint, acrylic) you can paint light over dark once the lower layer is dry. Whatever the paint, let each layer dry before painting over it, and stop before you overwork an area: scrubbing wet paint again and again turns it into mud.

7Cleaning up

1. Wipe extra paint off the brush onto newspaper.
2. Wash each brush in water (and a little soap for acrylic) until the water runs clear, working the soap into the base of the bristles.
3. Reshape the tip with your fingers and store brushes flat or standing on their handles, never on their bristles.
4. Close the paint pots, clean the palette and wipe the desk.

Worked example: planning the order

Habimana will paint, in poster paint, a yellow jerrycan and a red cloth on a blue mat, against a pale wall. He plans his order and gives a reason for each step.

1. Value plan: the wall is the lightest area, the shadow under the jerrycan the darkest. He marks them on a thumbnail.
2. Wall first (furthest back, biggest area) with a large flat brush in a pale tint.
3. Blue mat next, then the red cloth, then the yellow jerrycan in front: back to front, so the jerrycan's edge sits cleanly over the cloth.
4. Shades and tints on each object once the first layer is dry, following the light from the window.
5. Highlights and details (the jerrycan's cap and a white highlight) last, with a small round brush.
6. Clean up: brushes washed and stored bristles up.

8Make it: final painting

1. Prime a piece of card about A4 in size and let it dry.
2. Set up a still life of three objects in the primary colours, lit from one side.
3. Make a thumbnail and a value plan.
4. Paint it using only red, yellow, blue, white and black, following the order of work.
5. Write a short evaluation: What worked? Which area would you repaint, and how?

9Look closely

The Dutch artist Adriaen van Ostade (1610–1685) made this etching of a painter at work in about 1667.

• The easel stands close to a large window on the left, so daylight falls straight onto the picture: painters always need good, steady light.
• The painter rests his hand on a long stick laid against the picture. This mahlstick keeps his hand steady and off the wet paint.
• At the back of the room an assistant works at a table, probably preparing paint. Before ready-made paint was sold in tubes, colours were ground by hand and mixed with a binder every day.

Practice