Know Your Tools! (Types of Brushes for Acrylic, Oil Painting and Watercolour)

Understanding which brushes to use is essential to any artist as they act like the magic wand one is using to create outstanding artworks. This is part of the series where you will understand which tools to use to make your work fantastic!

#1 Types of Brushes for Acrylic, Oil Painting and Watercolour

I will be focusing on Acrylic Painting Brushes, Oil painting Brushes and Watercolour Brushes.

There are 8 basic shapes of brushes for the type of paintings mentioned above:

I found the perfect image on Pinterest!

Let's get into the details :

Round Brushes and Pointed Brushes:

Round and pointed brushes have a large belly tapering to a fine point. They are capable of bold strokes that can cover wide areas, and even make fine lines and intricate details.

To start off, one does not need all sizes, they can just start with 2 brushes,The medium sized round brush and the Medium Sized Flat Brush.

Flat or Rectangular

These brushes act as amazing wash brushes. They have square ends that are flexible, and can accommodate a lot of colour. They can render long strokes when used flat, and are well suited to mix and paint in wide areas. The tips and sides can also be used for finer lines and small touches.

Bright Brushes

The bright is a short bristled,  flat brush ideal for short, controlled strokes. This can be used with heavy paint and with distinct, square edges can deposit marks, like the flat.

Angular Flat Brushes

A slanting tip for the bristles is particularly useful for curves and can create lines and shapes which vary in thickness and coverage.

Fan Brushes

As the name suggests, these brushes have a tip shaped like a fan. Such brushes are perfect for blending skies and backgrounds, as well as applying subtle highlights to darker regions.

With this brush one can create various textures too.

Detail Round

These brushes are used for the finest of details and give you complete control of the brush.

Painting and Palette Knives (Acrylic Painting and Oil Painting)

Using these knives brings dimension into your painting and is also often used to mix and apply paint (usually thick paint).

Thank you,

That's all for now. Coming up next week the Sizes and Different Bristles.

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