Mark Making
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For me the brush is all. I am able to buy many types of brushes that are able to satisfy most requirements. However, I am always on the hunt for more options. It is about making marks. I need variety to express all the subtleties I see in nature. The option therefore is to make my own something I have done for some time.
Brush making materials.
Surprisingly I have found many types of materials for brush making very local to where I live. the most exotic being horse tail hair from a friend’s horse that needed trimming. I have also used all manner of twigs, grasses, straw and split bamboo. I also use string rags sponges and feathers. It seems that if I can dip it in paint I can use it.
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Brush assembly
I put the brushes together using various types of handles. The easiest is to wrap the brush material around a stick of wood or bamboo with twine. A more sophisticated method is to insert the bristles twigs hair into a tube. I can easily obtain this with a piece of hollow bamboo. Alternatively I use a piece of copper pipe over the end of a stick to form a ferrule.
How to handle
With my home-made brushes I expect the unexpected. The whole point in making them is to discover a whole new range of media. I want haphazard, random, undisciplined uninhibited, inimitable. I expect the unusual as a result of spontaneity. I want ineffable and the indescribable you know what I mean. The results are invariably unexpected; for example the brush made from twigs paints the best branches ever!
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The empathetic brush
One of the most sensual aspects of painting in watercolour is the interaction between the paper and the brush. I can literally feel the empathy between my fingers if it is there. When trying to understand how a new brush will behave, I will take it for a walk trying as many different strokes as possible in order to see into its soul!
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