So many brushes, so little time.

So many brushes, so little time. 

In the last piece (Snoop Dogg) we were talking 

about using gritty Spatter shaped brushes in 

one click to create the illusion of water color. 

Today I though I'd play with brushes that 

are(in some cases) like a 'calligraphy stroke' mark. 

I thought I'd 'one click' them and see what I could get. 

This is less about faking watercolor and more about 

making a fun image with some of those same techniques.

 

The other thing I have been playing with 

are smoke brushes. (I often say my art is all 

smoke and mirrors. The illusion of something is 

way more fun than painting the reality of it for me.) 

Anyway, smoke brushes are a great way to 

one-click yourself into some great hair, 

also you can use some of their gradient curves 

to do nice transitional shading in a click. 

Then erase what you don't need.

 

At one point I got really carried away on this piece 

and I almost gave up on it. I used so many of 

these little clicks on her face that it was overworked. 

(The danger of so many brushes is that you want 

to use them all.) But I was able to revert back 

to a midstate (thanks to a history brush marker) 

and sally forth.

Art is fun. You don't have to have everything 

planned out before you paint a piece. Often, 

good art is a series of happy accidents that you saw 

and then were able to capitalize on.