Duccio (1255–1319)Madonna, c. 1280, Tempera on wood, 36 × 23 in (91.4 × 58.4 cm)
THE EVOLVED USES OF THE MOST POPULAR ART-MAKING TOOL
Almost all painting in both the Eastern and Western traditions is accomplished with brushes. Over the centuries, a variety of brushing techniques have evolved—ways of handling and delivering paint that give differing results, facilitate a wide variety of expression, and allow a broad selection of finishes.
• Glazing
Paint, usually oil or acrylic, is applied in semitransparent layers. Each layer is allowed to dry before the next is applied, allowing for great depth and richness of tone and color. A soft brush is used and layers can be modified using a fan brush.
• Stippling
Paint is applied in small, even strokes so that tonal and color gradations can be created in a delicately broken surface. Although laborious, this technique offers the possibility of close and positive control of tone and color and the creation of rich surfaces. Stippling is ideal for fast-drying mediums such as tempera or acrylic.
• Impasto
Paint is applied in heavy, opaque layers, which often involves painting wet-into-wet. This is can be a risky and very physical technique, allowing for heavy surfaces and expressive use of the brush.
• Scumbling
Paint is built with an array of open marks pulled over the surface in a loose and uneven way to create a soft, broken and active surface. This is often used as a layering technique that allows for the color of one surface to be visible through the one above.
• Knocking Down
A line or edge of wet paint is partially obscured and softened by pulling the end of a brush through it in a crisscross fashion.
• Dragging
A brushstroke pulls one color into another, dragging both along the surface to create a kind of active blend.
• Dry Brush
Only a very small amount of paint is taken up. The end of the brush is then dragged along the surface so that the paint is only picked up by its texture, creating a semitransparent layer.
• Flooding
This is usually a watercolor technique where the artist uses a mop brush to apply a large amount of watery paint that floods into an area.
See also: Underpainting on page 202
Duccio (1255–1319)
Madonna, c. 1280, Tempera on wood, 36 × 23 in (91.4 × 58.4 cm)
A delicate elongated stippling of the paint is used to build subtle tonal transitions across the flesh.
Gustave Caillebotte (1848–94)
Paris: A Rainy Day (Detail), 1877, Oil on canvas, 83 1/2 × 108 3/4 in (212.2 × 276.2 cm)
Scumbling is used to achieve broken layers of paint.
Gustave Courbet (1819–77)
Source of a Mountain Stream, 1876, Oil on canvas, 17 7/8 × 23 1/4 in (45.4 × 59.1 cm)
A heavy impasto is applied over thinner layers of paint.
Dragging. Yellow is pulled across a layer of wet blue paint with a stiff bristle brush, creating a lively green.
Knocking down a line
