Let me know which of these hacks you liked the best - and if you need basic brush strokes watch this next: Basic Watercolor Brush Strokes! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WNtuYTlSWiE.html
I just love the way u speak and give small little tips…. I feel like I’m back in school and having a ball just listening to u. Thank you for keep giving of ur self❤️
Hi,Michele, I am a 73 year old disabled woman with serious heart failure and cancer 😅. ..these are just lessons. However I absolutely love 💕 all your fabulous advice videos. I specially love your reference to the ‘good old times’ of stencil brushes, fluffy makeup brushes etc. My name is Terry. I was born in the U.K. then called Britain, 😆. People my call me crazy but I am trying to become a decent Artist, Poet, Writer. My father was a Russian royal, now long dead. I live in a little town in Canada, in Ontario. Along with being blessed with many health challenges, financially I am truly a disaster. I find that You and you videos are not only extremely helpful but fabulously inspirational to me. Being disabled I am “locked down “ a great deal of the time mostly on my bed, in a tiny apartment in what would have been Council Housing, in old England. This however does not deter me from loving to learn! I have a little talent but no real technical knowledge. So I truly appreciate your fantastic comprehensive teaching methods. All that you shore your wonderful knowledge freely so much of the time. I am absolutely grateful, so thank you very much. I am trying to write two books , do inspirational poetry, and am trying to become an Artist. Hopefully 🙏 I can become good enough to put ‘art ‘ out good enough to sell one day? That is if my heart 💜 will behave itself long enough to let me succeed. My tiny apartment is like a warehouse now with all manner of artist materials 😂…Thank the Heavens for you and all the help I get from your videos. Now that I have written you this book😢… I just wanted you to know how appreciated you are, with the huge difference you really make…in my life anyway. Thank you again, Terry Walton.
Thanks so much Terry, I appreciate your comment, it's so nice to hear from real people getting value from my work. I will always have free content for you to watch and wish you improvement with your health issues :-)
First I want to thank you for all the great tutorials 💕 My tip for drying brushes is: Take a cutting board and wrap 3 rubber bands around it. Then slip the first brush (head down ) under the middle rubber band and the second brush beneath the first and third rubber band. The next brush would be again slipped under the middle rubber band and so on.I lean the board upright against my studio wall and let my brushes dry over night.
The marks with the makeup brush are so delicate and wonderfully random. I found a new favorite brush when I tried a small dagger brush. It holds quite a lot of water but has a small tip. The hairs are quite short so it is more sturdy that a round one you would use for similar strokes. It is true that you only need a couple decent brushes to start with but when you get more into painting it is interesting to try new tools.
I use a sharp nail trimmer to snip off hairs that have stuck out sideways from the ferrule, as opposed to using a scalpel that is dangerous, as you said.
i always just used a pair of thread snips for stray hairs. another thing to use for washing brushes, they make a silicon washing pad for dishes. i cut one to fit in the bottom of my jar when washing up and it works wonders. i keep a tiny spray bottle of water for reactivating pan or dried paint. spray and wait a few and good to go for the most part. before i got a good holder for drying brushes i made copper hangers by wrapping the ends of my brushes in a spiral with wire at the pointed end and just hanging them on a line or off my cork board with push pens. glad to know smoothing them with my fingers was the right way :)
Ooooh, love the tips for mixing hard paint and having one forever clean brush to apply water!! I was so excited to see the rubber hack as I do that too!! I hang my brushes on the hooks of my whiteboard or on the long neck of my desk lamp lol
Thanks again for another wonderful “cat approved” video (my cat was perched over my shoulder watching with me)! My favorite part of your video was the part where you re-shaped the brush in hot water and used gum arabic. I have bought the expensive brush shaper product in the past. Great alternative! I also liked the homemade brush cleaner. A small drop of Dawn dish soap in water is also highly effective and gentle as it is used here in the US to wash the feathers of birds that have come in contact with oil spills or other environmental hazards.
Hello, love your videos. To clean my art brushes I use a "brush cleaner soap bar" which conditions the brushes. Wet brushes, twirl on the soap bar, rinse and repeat...final wash leave the soap on the brushes and let them dry. This method reshapes the hairs nicely. Whenever you use your brushes again rinse with warm water. Works very well for keeping round brush tips pointy.
Loved the multicolour fan make up brush. Mind of Watercolor showed a great trick of getting a drier brush. Paper towel where the bristles meet ferrule sucks water but the paint stays in the brush. Lots of good tips,thanks.
Michelle, I love your directness! Shooting Straight from the Hip! [as we might say for one who doesn't, 'beat around the bush', in the USA - not sure about the UK]. I've been wanting to tell you that for the longest time. I simply love watching your videos and your learning some fantastic tips, tricks, or just genuine lessons that I needed to see, (being a beginner). Anyway, I wanted to chime in on the question you asked in the beginning... I would LOVE to see you make/explain a video on the different types of watercolor brushes and how to properly use them, or how to use them in ways people don't normally think of, etc. Thank you for taking your time, Shell. It's appreciated by many, and certainly myself! xo - Dr. James
Thank you for this. For trimming the errant hairs that happen on my nail art brushes, I use nail clippers to snip them off at the ferrule. It works great.
Also I cut slits of various widths in a pool noodle I got from the dollar store to hang my brushes. I cut another slit lengthwise to slide the noodle onto my paint cart.
I love all the brush tips! I'm a beginner and the tree hack and stippling hack are my favorites. I'm going to start looking for old makeup brushes and try them today!
These hacks are great. Liked how to thoroughly clean brushes and using prepared fan brushes for tree leaves. Thank you to for the tip to keep one brush just for painting on water.
Thanks for this, last night I was trying to work out how to hang my brushes up, now I know! The old acrylic brush for mixing dried paint is genius. I was going to throw my old brushes out but now I’ll save one for doing that. Really useful thanks!
You’ve sent me to my late mothers closet to go through some of her brushes I thought were trash! I did find a brand new large Bob Ross brush that I’ll use for eraser debris!
23:10 this tip! seems obvious now. This is a winning tip for us nervous (newbie) nellies wanting to minimise ware-and-tear on our brushes when it comes to re-activating dried palleted paint.
I have a cheap 2” hake brush that I bought at a craft store for doing big washes of water a couple years ago. At first it was dropping a lot of hairs, but I found a tip someone shared (I think sambeawesome) to add some watery superglue to the base of the brush, and now it drops hardly any hairs 😁
Excellent video, there are very few videos on this subject, and none that talk about the fish hook issue. I teach medatative, and healing art and watercolor to recovering addicts. Most of our supplies are donated or come out of my pocket. I travel with my brushes a lot, and they take a lot of abuse. Thanks
I would love it if you didd a video on brushes and their possibilities, and I'msure I'mnotalone! Love love watching your videos, and always look forwardtothenextone. Have a pretty day 🐞
Wooow! These are superb! The rubber hack is a winner for me today, as I have realised I can actually have it hanged on my desk - the lamp crews seems to be perfect for that 🤩 Fantastic compilation of incredible useful hacks. Thank you!
I am so glad that I found your videos. You teach the techniques and give tips that are so useful that it indeed has improved my watercolour work. Thank u Wish u the best always
Bought the gum arabic and I'm going to try the reshaping hack. All your tips and videos are so good. Thank you so much for sharing your talent and knowledge with us.
I loved seeing your hacks, the info will prove very useful.. I would surely be interested in a video explaining the uses for the various watercolor brushes. thanks so much for the information!
Love the rubbrt band hanger trick. I have used cheap dollar store hair style gel on brushes in between uses. Don't use too much, just a light coat and it will rinse right off when you're ready to paint again.
Most of these I learnt along the way. Didn't know the one about saving a good brush that is bent. I wish I knew these tips in the beginning. My favourite brush is a cheap acrylic brush I cut into. It does beautiful stippled leaves. Thank you
I use cuticle clippers for the stray paintbrush hairs. Then there is just a simple scissor action. No chance of cutting through to your fingers or thumb.
What a great compilation of brush tips. I knew some of them, but listening to you explain it helped me to understand the why’s. I agree with so many of the comments here. I’m learning so much from your channel. Thank you for taking the time to post. 💙🌵🙏
Hi rewatching this video, i found using a nail clipper to get the wonky hair that sometimes chooses to be going rogue from barrel also is a safe alternative for someone with arthritis or a unsteady hand instead of a cutting knife.. also if its your favorite dry brus u can sand down and spray pain the handle and add a bit of hit glue to reattach the handle to barrel ,im like you i love my tools till they are so rin down looking but if it feels good weight wise in your hand then thats whats a think you should continue to use.....thanks for this video....mikelle art mom👩🎨🎨✍
Another great tutorial, thank you Michele. Now I’m pleased that I haven’t thrown away some of my makeup brushes, I shall give the good clean and add them to my collection of art brushes. My fan brushes will get a haircut and I will find my decorating brushes, which have never been used and use them for prewetting my paper this avoiding green or brown skies or what ever colour is still hiding in the bristles. So tomorrow all of my brushes will get a good cleaning. I appreciate how you give an explanation behind each suggestion it helps me remember the advice given.
Thanks Michele for sharing these wonderful hacks. I just want to add that for people who don't have a steady hand, a nail clipper will do the trick instead of a scalpel. Second, the fan brush as the same use when it comes down to make up: remove the excess of powder. Have a great time for Christmas and may 2022 be much better for everyone than 2021.
I want to try chinese caligraphy brushes for watercolour. Ive seen other watercolour artists use them and they seem to like them. Do you ever use them? This is a brill video, thankyou. You're so delightful to watch and listen to. All the best x
Oh wow I am ahead of the game on using a fan brush for leaves, grasses, & such, along with the stiff scrub brush. I’m also ahead using plain liquid soap daily but I have & still use the Masters Brush Cleaner & Preserver too. Boy I am guilty of using my hands constantly during erasing, so yes I need to remember to use a brush. 😬😉 I would love to see you do a video of the various brushes, especially a cat tongue/oval wash brush. I have got a Princeton Neptune 1/2 inch recently, so I’m curious about how & what all I could do with it. Thanks for sharing all these tips/hacks with us. Constantly learning new things with each video.
Fantastic ideas. I like the rubber glove one, the texture on the glove to help clean is great, gonna use it for my makeup brushes too. Now I have to go "point cut" my spare fan brush. Feel like it's spa day for my paint brushes. Thank you as always for sharing your wealth of knowledge, greatly appreciated. Peace
I have a cheap fan brush for nail art that I use sometimes. It works for painting trees quite well for what it is. Mostly I use the dry brushing technique to paint these textures.
That’s what I do to my bangs in between appointments. I have an old brush that wasn’t used but it goes off to one side. I tried wrapping with paper but no luck!
Fabulous tutorial. I bought a fan brush with long bristles, but had no idea how to use it. Would love to see a tutorial on how to use natural sea sponge when painting watercolor.
Thank you for these brush hacks ❤ I wish I had watched this video before I used my DaVinci brushes for a scrubbing technique I did in a bubbles 🫧 painting 😂😢 25:07
