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I am IN LOVE with these two beautiful boards on Etsy. I can't imagine how stunning these would be for a party spread; they will surely be conversation starters! You definitely could pick up a board from Amazon or Target, but it's so much more special when it's handmade. Speaking of handmade...

Imagine your friends and family asking where you got your gorgeous board and getting to tell them you made it yourself! This kit has everything you'll need to make a beautiful mosaic charcuterie board from start to finish. When you purchase our kits, you'll receive the following:

• Grout
• Tiles (if you have specific colors in mind, shoot us an email before ordering, and we'll work with you to execute your exact vision)
• Glue
• Paint to finish the border of your project
• A Brush
• Detailed instructions to guide you

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From Thanksgiving to New Year, so many gorgeous ideas for charcuterie spreads exist. You don't have to go quite so ornate, especially if you're on a budget, but making a beautiful presentation is so much fun! We have loads of ideas saved to our Pinterest that you'll definitely want to check out! ​

​Fan brushes have an interesting shape, but how exactly should you utilize that shape? It can be tricky to know how you're supposed to use fan brushes when other brushes are far more straightforward, especially when a few wrong moves with a fan brush could make your whole painting look super awkward! In this post, we'll cover what fan brushes are and aren't great for, so you can use them whenever they'll suit your painting best. 

​Let's start with... When you shouldn't use a fan brush.

1. You shouldn't use fan brushes to cover large surface areas. Loading up lots of paint on a fan brush will just drag it down. Fan brushes are very light and delicate, leaving lots of little gaps in our paint if you try to cover your surface with one.

Fan brushes are great for getting clouds soft, fluffy, and nicely blended. To achieve this, you'll want to paint on your sky before worrying about your clouds; you can paint a solid sky or a gradient like I did here! I prefer to paint clouds by painting on a couple of little blobs of my lightest color on my background while it's still wet using a round or flat brush; then, I take my fan brush to feather out and soften the bottom edges.

Use a relatively small fan brush for clouds to get in there with it and have more control. ​If it's still looking a little off to you, keep playing around with it, layer more of your highlight and shadow colors on top of your previous blends, and feather it more gently. Remember, clouds don't need to be perfect; they need to look puffy!

Now, let's get into trees, specifically evergreens. Fan brushes are best for painting evergreens like pines, spruces, and firs, just because the branches and needles grow out of them in more straight lines than other trees. You'll want to use a larger fan brush for your branches because it'll make it much easier to make everything look naturally spaced! Once you've used a small round brush to paint your trunk, use your fan brush to paint on their branches by holding your fan brush straight up from your canvas with just the very tips covered in paint. 

The thing that makes fan brushes perfect for this is the way the brush's hair separates organically when there is paint on this brush; it creates a really natural-looking spacing between the spots where the needles would be. 

​These brushes are fantastic for achieving texture in grass and brush! In general, they're wonderful for natural scenes and landscapes; you can even use them to add stars to paintings or sparkling highlights on water. However, right now, we're talking about brush; as you can see in the example, fan brushes make grass look natural and easily create fabulous texture. Instead of just tapping your brush on your surface as you would with trees, you'll want to make quick upward strokes and lift off fast. 

For bushes, you'll want to combine how you paint clouds and trees, so start off with a more fluffy, blended base of your base color, then go over the top and tap on highlights and shadows. This technique will give you beautiful, soft bushes!

If you're ready to delve into painting even more, check out How To Choose A Background For Your Painting. Our guide shows you how to use color theory to choose a background color that will work beautifully with the rest of your painting!