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Three Brush Functions by Helen Van Wyk #artlessons #oilpainting #oilpaintingteacher #helenvanwyk

A brush does three distinct things. Let Helen show you the three functions of a brush. The first thing a brush does is fill in large areas with no stroke longer than an inch and a half. The next thing a brush can do is bump a contrasting tone against that large area sharply, making the 'found' line. If you put a tone against that large area in a fuzzy way, the brush makes the 'lost' line. You might notice that the lost line looks as if it's always rolling back, and the found line looks as though it might jump forward. After all, this is almost a trick to paint a three-dimensional world on a two-dimensional surface. But wait, a brush doesn't make a line. If you put a brush to canvas and stroke, you actually have two lines: one on both sides of the stroke.