Brushstroke Basics featuring Donna Dewberry is presented by
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Hi, I'm Donna Dewberry. Welcome to Brushstroke Basics. Today I'm going to teach you how to paint the one stroke technique using folk art paints and one stroke brushes.
Once you've learned my simple techniques, you'll paint a quick and easy project featuring sunflowers and wisterias. So let's get started.
The first thing we're going to do is talk about our paint and our brushes so that you know how to use them when you're painting your projects.
We're using acrylic paints, and these acrylic paints are water-based, which makes it really nice. There's no smell. They're thick and creamy.
See, we're going to squeeze out our white, and we're going to pick up a second color so that we can load this brush and show you how to do this.
All right. We're going to put out some berry wine. We put out at least a nickel to a quarter size paint because we're going to use lots of paint.
And the first brush that I'm going to show you is a flat brush. See our flat brush? It's got synthetic nylon bristles.
This is the silver parts of the ferrule. Okay. And then when I'm talking about chisel edge, I'm talking about this edge right here on your brush.
Okay. Now my bristles are long, my flat bristles are longer and thinner. So when we're holding a lot of paint and we push down, watch this, when we push down,
it'll spring right back up when we release pressure. See that? All right. So what we're going to do with this brush first is we're going to wet this brush.
All right. We're going to lay it on a paper towel. We're going to let the excess water run out, and then we're ready to load the brush.
Now I want you to realize with my flat brushes, I have size two all the way to one and a half. Now see what I've done here?
I've dipped one corner, one corner, work in between. Now you can't put your paint next to each other and just work in between the two colors,
depending on what size your brush is. All right. Dip corner to corner. Now this is the key. We're not doing this number. Okay.
We're pushing very hard. We want to load this brush two thirds at least full of paint. And the only way you could do that is really,
see I'm almost scooping up paint to start with. All right. Now I wanted at least two thirds up the brush.
Now before I do anything with this brush, I want to show you how I would load a number two, the smaller brushes.
Basically from size 12 and lower, you can choose to load your brush like I just showed you, or let me show you how to load this brush.
Now this is like what I'm using like an aid here. This is how I want to show you. With the smaller brushes, it's hard to dip the two corners.
So what we're going to do is we're going to pick up all one color. Can you see that?
Still working back and forth so you can get the paint on both sides.
Then when we need paint from this brush, the white, we're going to go to the second color, whatever it is, and stroke on one side.
So watch this as I'm stroking, I'm going to dip more. Watch this until it's the shade I want.
And then when I need more paint, I'm going to come over here and just dip a little bit more white, not the berry wine. OK.
Now when I'm picking up this brush, the larger brushes from 12 and larger, what I'm going to do when I need more paint is dip, dip ever so lightly and go start painting.
See this? There we go. So we still have a nice shading. All right. That's my flat brushes.
Now what I want to show you next is the script liner. It's the only brush that I use water with to paint.
So I'm going to take the script liner. It's got long bristles. See this?
It's got the longer bristles, long skinny, so the paint just flows to the tip if you if you put plenty of inky paint in there.
So let's get some berry wine. Well, I was going to put some green forest out here since we've already got berry wine there.
OK. That's going to we're going to go into the water three times.
The first time we make little circles next to our puddle.
Dip again. OK. Usually three times. Now see how big that puddle is. I really want it large. I don't want it small.
Roll the brush. Most important thing about my technique is loading your brush.
So I want you to learn all these steps of loading the brush so that you're prepared to paint with this brush properly.
Loading is the most important thing. So remember when I'm showing you how to dip and pick up more color?
That's important. I'll show you how to use that script liner in a minute.
Now the last brush I want to show you is the scruffy brush. This is my beginner's favorite brush.
See this brush when it comes out of the package is flat. OK.
Now what we want to do is we want to fluff this brush. So we want to put it in our hand while it's flat.
And we're going to take and turn the brush like this. OK.
Then we're going to take. Fluff it.
OK. It's all dry. Now we're ready to load this brush.
Now when we're loading this brush we're going to pounce into white half.
OK. And then we're going to half into our second color. All right. Half and half.
Now when we need more paint. See how hard we're pouncing. That's exactly what we want to do.
Continue to go pick up more paint. Now let me show you how to clean this brush.
When we want to clean this brush we're going to take and pounce it straight down.
Now this is natural hairs on this brush. So if we rake this brush instead we will break the bristles.
So we want to pinch this brush at the ferrule really tight.
Then we want to come to our paper towel and fluff this brush up.
Take our fingernails down into the middle again. Fluff it really nice and store it till we're ready to use it again.
All right. Now remember one more time I want to show you with the flat brush how we're going to clean this brush.
We're going to take this brush and we are going to rake this brush right here into our base.
Can you hear that? It's real important to rake that along there.
And we want to make all we want to get all that paint out of the silver out of the ferrule.
That's the only thing that will destroy the chisel edge of this brush. Okay.
Now we're ready to paint our projects. Remember we're going to learn strokes and then paint a project.
And you can't do that unless you have good brushes and these brushes are going to be great for your projects.
Well let's get started with our reusable teaching guides.
They're my leaf strokes and everybody's favorite.
So let's load our number 12 flat brush and start stroking.
The first thing we're going to do is pick up our two colors. Remember we're going to start with a white or yellow.
I'm going to dip it the white and yellow. Watch this white yellow and let's come over here to our darker green.
This is green forest school bus yellow wicker white and green forest back and forth.
Remember we want this brush two thirds full.
It was a dampen brush first so don't forget that laid on the paper towel and then we're ready to go.
Now I'm going to pick up a little bit more paint because I want to push harder.
See this hard real important.
Now there's three important steps that you have to do.
Load your brush two thirds full hold the handle straight up and down as I'm stroking my brush and put pressure.
All right. So we've got straight little lines here on our stroke sheets.
We're going to touch that line. We're going to push turn the green edge slightly towards the tip.
Not a half circle and then slide as we lift to the tip.
Now remember what I told you my brushes are longer bristles so that if we release pressure they spring up.
Now what I want you to do is practice across your sheets.
Wipe it off with your wipes and practice again.
All right. We're going to pick up more paint.
Now remember no water.
You only dampen your brush in the beginning and we're using thick creamy paint.
The folk art paints really thick and nice for this.
Now this stroke is a complete half circle so that we could do another stroke on the other side.
Complete half circle and then we have a leaf.
Now remember what I was saying before on this one we don't turn a whole half circle just slightly.
So those are the things you're going to look for as you're practicing on the guide is to follow my stroke.
It's real important especially when we start wiggling these strokes.
OK. Like here's a stroke that's wiggled.
We're going to start on the straight line push down wiggle as we're wiggling.
I want you to slowly ever so slowly follow my green edge then left.
Now the stroke's gonna look better when you move faster.
But at first one or two times I want you slowly to follow my strokes and then you're going to go faster after that.
One two three wiggle.
OK.
Now as you go down here we're going to have this side as a as a second half of a leaf.
Right here.
Remember let's go back up here.
I'm sorry.
We're going to wiggle there.
Now this would be the second half of that leaf.
You push down and slide push slide.
All right.
This stroke right here shows another direction that we're going to be doing some ways where we push left chisel push left.
Remember the chisels the little fine edges of the bristles right here.
We're going to push and just slide forward.
That's a little leaf or a half of a leaf.
Now we have some out there that are lefties.
I want to show you a little trick to do with lefties here.
This is like a Kalec.
Let me show you this before we move.
We touch lean forward and left as we come around.
Now that's there's a little bit of trick to that and that's lifting the yellow as we come up.
All right.
You notice I keep coming over and picking up paint.
Very important.
Now I'm going to flip this like everybody loves this doing a turn leaf.
It looks like you you don't have to all this extra shading as one stroke painting blending shading and highlighting in each stroke.
And it happens as we're doing the stroke here.
We start on the line.
Look this is a starter stroke one two three.
That's to get ready.
One two three.
It kind of blends the color pushes your bristles down.
Now you want me to do that again.
Everybody loves seeing that.
Let's do it one more time.
One two three.
Now wiggle watching my green edge lift the brush slightly.
Turn the brush completely in my fingers.
I rolled it in my fingers and left.
All right.
That takes a little bit of practice but you'll have fun doing it.
Now sunflower leaves.
Watch this.
We're here on the edge.
We're going to loop loop loop loop all the way to the tip.
Now what you're going to find as you go along this guide or simple little strokes.
There are lots of fun.
If you're a lefty I was starting to talk about lefties and I left you behind.
Let's go back to you.
Now this is what I want you to do.
All you have to do is turn your guide a right handed person strokes to the right.
If you're lefty you turn this way.
I can't really stroke left bang on pretend here when you're doing the stroke it's easier for you to turn and pull this towards your tummy towards your body.
All right.
Just that's one thing that will help you on these strokes.
If you're stroking a flower petal on our next sheet you're going to start where it says in and end where it says start.
All right.
But all lefties adapt to the right hand world in different ways.
So whichever is easiest for you just play with it.
It should be easy for you to do if any of these strokes are difficult then you guys out there are doing something wrong.
OK.
It's supposed to be a simple simple stroke for you.
Now let's come right here.
Now this is a little trickier but I want you to watch what I'm doing.
This is how we make the Holly.
All right.
We're going to touch push down left push down left push down left.
Now it's just that easy and it makes Holly really fun.
If you just do not come off but just lightly left and when you left you want to form that point.
OK.
Now we would wipe this off all right flip it over and start on the next side.
And so I want you to practice you know it's hate.
I tell everybody if you just practice about an hour a day either early in the morning or late at night whenever it's your time with my seven children I'd find a time that was best for me and that was at night.
I just wanted to relax and enjoy painting.
That's what I want you to do.
All right.
Now this leaf is really fun.
This leaf we're going to start here and we're going to go one two three and we're going to wiggle.
And we want to see a seashell sea is a half circle seashell right here like a fan.
And as soon as we see that then we can let the brush stand up and slide to the tip.
Now if this brush is leaning down I want you to watch week if it's laying down we can do the wiggles but we can't get that tip unless we totally totally crank this around.
And then we have this ugly tail on here.
So we don't want to do that.
We want to keep the brush handle straight up and down one two three.
This is another key.
Look at this straight on one two three.
We want to keep that pressure so that brush covers from there to there.
My entire stroke.
Now what happens is lots of people get started and they start releasing pressure releasing pressure and then they're not covering the whole stroke.
That's what I want you to work on.
All right.
This is the left side the right side one side is always easier than the other.
All right.
And then this is another little fun leaf.
Let's show you this wiggle left.
Do not come off your palate and slide back to the center.
And what we have accomplished there is the leaf the stem and the vine and one stroke without ever lifting.
Now what we're going to do here is I'm going to get my larger brush and I'm going to show you how to do a vine.
All right.
Lots of pain.
Push hard wiggle back and forth.
Get that brush in there. All right.
Here we are.
We're up on the chisel edge.
OK.
We're slightly when we're leading with the chisel edge we're always going to leave with a lighter color.
When we're up on the chisel edge we're going to slightly lift the yellow and we're going to drag these bristles.
See that.
That's our vine.
I just want you to practice that.
All right.
Now this is this is what you're going to do when you're practicing.
We're going to go to the road the pedal sheet and just show you a couple of pedals.
And I want to show you a couple of things as we look through this that are going to be a lot like the leaves that you're going to be pretty surprised about because it's very simple and how they relate to each other.
Here we go.
Here we go.
Let's look at this stroke that we just did up here.
The stroke here looks like half the leaf we just did.
You see that right here is a tulip.
Now what you do is you go in your garden and you find these strokes.
I'm loading my brush again so I'm ready for you.
You find these pedals and say well you know what that kind of looks like.
That kind of looks like that Holly I was doing but that looks like this morning glory out there in my garden.
See that push lift all the way around just like we're doing with the Holly.
This right here is like the half of the leaf.
Look at this.
Does that look familiar.
OK.
Now look at this.
This is a one stroke leaf right there.
But it's also your sunflower petal all right which we're going to do a little bit later.
Now watch this.
This is what a lefty would do.
They'd start on this side this side.
Now let's do this one more time.
Watch this.
Here's a righty push left.
Real important what I don't want you to do is we don't turn our brush in a half circle.
We don't do that.
We stand here.
We push push on the bristles.
Now I want you to practice those as you do as you go along doing each stroke.
Let's turn this over.
All right.
Now this is an iris tongue to the iris.
Pick up yellow when I'm doing this.
Watch this.
It's kind of like the rose petal.
But we're pushing a little bit harder.
See how I'm twisting that brush.
You want you to what.
Here's a dogwood.
All you're doing is watching the outer edge of each one of these strokes.
And I want you to have fun while you're practicing on this guide.
And basically all you're doing is going right over my strokes.
Now what we're going to do next is show you how to do wisteria and curlicues.
All right.
We're going to use a script liner and I'm going to show you how to hold your brush to do our curlicues.
Remember we're going to go into water three times.
Go to the edge of the puddle.
That's real important.
Never go here and put it to the side.
OK.
So if you make these circles here every time you come by this puddle you're going to pick up a little bit more paint.
We want it inky.
This is the only brush guys that I'm using water with.
OK.
Roll my brush in that paint so I don't have drips.
Pull out.
That's a good way to do that and see if it looks watery.
And you don't want it pasty either.
So you have to do right in between.
Put this hand this brush in your hand like a pencil and then move it from right here to right here to the first knuckle.
OK.
Then I want you to take and hold your shoulder and I want you to make big circles.
We are not using our wrist.
We are not using our fingers our entire arm.
When I learned how to do a curlicue I thought I was hot stuff because it was the hardest thing to teach myself.
So if you get in the habit of being on your little finger let's come right down here.
We're going to take our little finger and we're going to make circles.
OK.
And we're going to feel that one two three big circles to the left one two tight ones to the right.
OK.
So I start going slowly lower the tip.
OK.
Then I'm going to reverse the other way this way.
Now what I want to do is get going here and look up at me.
I want you to look up and don't look at what you're doing and just feel your arm.
That's how you're going to get that feeling without looking.
I don't want to trace a pattern and follow it.
Just make those curls without it.
Now you're going to have a good time doing that.
If you just listen shoulders handle the brush straight up and down.
Now let's load the scruffy brush all dry all fluffed out all ready to go.
Let's double load this.
I want to show you how to pounce.
Now what we're going to do is we're going to pounce half white.
See how I'm at the edge of the puddle of the white paint.
Then I come right here and pounce just as hard over here into the purple.
See I don't do this and I'm not doing this.
I see a lot of you out there doing that.
I want you to pounce just like this.
OK.
And you want to hear that sound too.
And look inside.
Everybody says oh look it looks bad in there.
Can you see that inside.
You're not supposed to be looking at that and worrying about that.
It is fanned out.
That's not going to show.
OK.
Now let's come over here and start pouncing.
What we want to do is keep the purple up.
We're not going to turn the brush in our fingers.
OK.
We're going to keep the purple up and we're going to move our hand around.
Now we're not going to pounce until it's all lavender.
We're not going to pounce until you see purple light purple medium purple
and white.
You will see all the shades.
And if you want to get a smaller tip you lean the brush on the edge like
this and lightly tip the edge until we have a tip and you can even go back
and get some purple.
Come back in there and add more.
That's all you have to do.
Now let's go paint a project.
We're going to have lots of fun.
Come on.
Let's start painting some flowers.
It's an easy project to start with and you're going to find out how fun it is
and how quick you blend shade and highlight.
We're going to take our scruffy brush and we're going to pounce it in half
black and half brown.
Now if you don't want a lot of black in your sunflower then you might want to
put two thirds brown.
We've got maple syrup and licorice here.
OK.
We've got lots of paint on the brush.
Now we're going to come right here on our watering can and we're going to pounce
a C with that brown.
You see that.
And it should look like more paint should look like a chocolate donut with
chocolate icing.
OK.
Now we're going to take our number 12 flat and we're going to take in between
the yellow ochre and school bus yellow.
We're going to grab our paint and we're going to push turn left one stroke
leaves.
Look at that all the way around.
Now the beauty of one stroke is that look how this black comes in the brown
comes in.
We have little streaks all around our petals.
We blend shade and highlight as we go.
What you're going to love is if you don't like a stroke you pick up fresh paint
and restroke over it.
Now what happens here is if your center dries before you're all the way around
pick up your scruffy and repounce again where it's dry.
All right.
Now we're going to come back here repounce pick up more paint repounce to
clean up your edges where you pulled from the center.
Then we're going to pick up on the light brown edge on the maple syrup we're
going to pick up yellow ochre and we're going to repounce while it's wet and
put a little highlight there.
Isn't that great.
Just that easy.
Let's take our three quarter inch flat brush double load it with school
Bush yellow and green forest and then we're going to paint our leaves on here.
Let's find a place I did really big on this sunflower.
Now what I want to tell you that you're going to love on this metal is that if
you don't like what you've done you can wipe it off and start all over again.
I'm going to turn this around.
Remember turn your piece.
Don't worry about it being sit straight on your table right right here.
Wiggle out.
Now if you paint on metal it will not look good if you use water.
Look at this just like that.
Put a couple more leaves and we're done.
And I paint on metal is really good with acrylics but you have to seal it.
So you want to spray it with a lacquer or a sealer when you're all done.
Now look at this all done on this side.
Isn't that fun.
I just took my number 12 brush and put some little leaves.
All right.
Now I'm going to show you wisteria.
Let's go paint some wisteria.
Let's put our watering can out of the way.
Great for mailboxes too.
All right.
We're going to we've got another palette going here and I'm going to clean out my
scruffy brush.
Remember we're going to pounce in the bottom the clean this bottom of our base
and clean this out.
Now when we're painting on wood or paper mache there's all sorts of surfaces you
can use even fabrics.
While you're painting on those you might use different mediums.
Fabric you can use fabric medium but on this wood I'm going to use floating
medium.
Now this is any time that you think you want to use water.
All right.
Got my scruffy all dried out ready to go.
And this is what we're going to do.
We're going to come over here to our wood piece and this isn't a perfect piece.
It's just it's really fun to paint on wood.
You take a base coat and lightly sand it get it all ready.
And if it's outdoor paint if it's for the outdoors you're not going to worry
about it because our paint has a really good pure pigmented paint in here that's
going to the color the coloration that we're using is going to be really good
outdoors.
Now look at this floating medium as a gel is the fluff that's inside paint with
no pigment in it.
You dip into it after your brush is already loaded.
You work it in.
Now you can only use that every second the third strokes.
OK.
Because if you use it too often it will be like you use water and it'll be muddy
and we don't want to have that.
OK.
That's how you're going to have the beautiful shading.
Now what we're going to do is we're going to make a little tavern sign here.
We're going to be up on the chisel edge.
All right.
We're going to come right in here.
Add some little vines.
So we start on this side.
Come over.
Start on this side.
Come over.
And then we can put our house number or whatever right in the middle.
Flat brushes are great for doing those numbers and names or you could even buy
letters and put them in there if you don't feel like you're good at it.
All right. Now we're going to make an Ivy.
See this.
The stroke here.
Now see the combinations of strokes I've done right there.
Now I'm going to do it with you slower.
All right.
Right here.
We're going to put a V.
We're going to go one two three.
Remember our starter stroke.
Wiggle out to the side.
Pick up fresh paint.
One two three.
Wiggle out to the side.
Now we're going to put a V right here.
We put a V to start our leaves.
That keeps the open area there so you're not overlapping the leaves wrong.
One two three.
And we put a heart.
Watch this.
We have a heart right in the middle.
One two three.
Wiggle.
OK.
Remember the handle straight up and down.
Remember those three steps.
Put two thirds worth of pain in your brush.
Up the bristles.
Two thirds up.
Second the handle straight up and down the whole time you're stroking.
And third we have to put pressure.
Now I want to show you really quick what happens.
Here's my V.
Watch what happens if I don't have pressure.
Watch what I do.
I continually come over here and pick up paint like this.
OK.
Or I can dip the two corners.
All right.
Right here.
I'm not going to put pressure.
That's what a lot of people do.
They stand right up on the edge.
Might look OK to you but look how much nicer it is when you push.
Besides you get a better blending shading and highlighting.
But that's the size of that leaf you want for that size brush.
You can shrink or enlarge any pattern that you want and use whatever is the
largest brush comfortable to do your strokes.
All right.
Then we're going to come in and put some little one stroke leaves with our
12 brush.
And then we're going to end with wisteria.
All right.
Right in here.
We come in here and put a few little one stroke leaves.
Always pulling stems in.
See how I kind of laid the big leaves first.
Then I come back in.
Let's see where we're going to go.
Come over here.
Let's put some wisteria in here.
Now remember we're going to pounce this scruffy half white half purple.
OK.
Going to keep the purple up.
Now what you're going to love is wet on top of wet.
You do not have to let anything dry.
Going to pick up more white.
See that's a little.
You don't have to let anything dry because we're not using water.
And usually you have to get out that blow dryer and most techniques.
I kind of break all the rules.
So all the traditional painting rules.
But I have fun painting and hopefully you'll enjoy my way and learn a few
strokes.
OK.
Come up here.
Maybe I'll put a little bit more.
You can even put a little ribbon or something up there.
Some of those strokes I was showing you I was showing you with the leaves
will make a little ribbons ribbon that way too.
OK.
Come back here.
See how I just keep coming back and adding more color.
See I'm getting muddy.
You don't want to be muddy.
And then to finish this up we're going to get our script liner.
See how vivid those colors are in their acrylic water base.
They're not oils but they look rich like oils.
We have pure pigmented colors and our other acrylic colors with really
great pigmentation.
All right.
Script liner.
My little finger down.
Look at this.
Fun fun fun.
And end it with your name.
Whenever I'm signing my name I steady with my little finger and there I go.
Isn't that fun.
Now that you've completed your projects you can see there are so many other
designs that you can learn.
Remember to become an excellent one stroke painter.
All it takes is practice.
Brush Stroke Basics featuring Donna Dewberry is presented by
Plaid Enterprises Incorporated.
Our quality paints stencils and other tools will make your next project so
beautiful so easy so plaid.