Brushes

[DanielG]

Does anyone use paint brushes or make-up brushes in your drawings. I have seen many artist using one or the other and was curious as to whether they actually blended better or it was just something that that particular artist thinks is better at making their drawing look better.

[Mike Sibley]

Does anyone use paint brushes or make-up brushes in your drawings. I have seen many artists using one or the other and was curious as to whether they actually blended better or it was just something that that particular artist thinks is better at making their drawing look better.

Not me. I think I played around with brushes for blending at one time? But I quickly came to my senses

I know you have some experience of Darrel Tank's brush blending method, and that sort of proves my point. It softens everything. Even edges that shouldn't be soft. That gives Darrel's work a rather diffused, unearthly look. And that's fine if that's his aim; and it does look good. But not fully realistic.

Personally, I use a 1" watercolour brush for one purpose only - brushing dust and debris off my drawing. Either eraser dust (in the rare event of me using one), or dusting it completely clean before applying fixative.

[DanielG]

yeah Darrel does use a brush to blend his drawings; however, I have seen many artist using brushes. I do see what you're saying about making the image looking softer. I use a 1" brush the same as you to clean off eraser dust from my drawing and desk. I unfortunately
have to erase more than you. I am going for full realism in my drawings, which I will get there one day.

[Mike Sibley]

I do see what you're saying about making the image looking softer.

I've just come into the studio from feeding the donkeys outside in a cold, gale force wind.
My eyes are streaming!
Sitting in the middle of my office floor is young Buster (17-year-old Parson Russell Terrier)
And HE LOOKS SOFT. Just like a Tank drawing.

There's rarely anything soft in Nature - especially not hair. It might FEEL soft, but every hair still has sharply defined edges.

Blending might speed up the drawing. And it might add a pleasant, dream-like quality - which I think Tank's do. But it won't represent realism.