How To Effectively Use A Fan Brush

how to effectively use a fan brush

11/8/2023

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.

2. Fan brushes aren't ideal for precise details or linework; their shape makes it nearly impossible to guarantee where they will leave their mark on your canvas.

Now, let's get into what fan brushes excel at!

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!

Now, you can create a beautiful nature scene with a fan brush. If you use any of these tips, I'd love to see it! You can email me at kits@thesketchingpad.com or tag us on Instagram @thesketchingpad.

WANT TO DIG DEEPER?

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!

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