brush stroke techniques for acrylics

Acrylic brush techniques

Practise making a variety of brush marks, acrylic colour mixing and painting an acrylic landscape in this guide to acrylic brush techniques by Jackie Garner.

In this guide, we'll explore acrylic brush techniques and applying paint to the surface, as we paint an acrylic landscape.

Knowledge of how different paint brushes behave enables you to create different textures and liveliness in your work. First, we're going to try an exercise in paint brush mark making then we'll create a painting that uses a variety of brushes and brush marks.

Paint brush strokes

You can imagine that, a plate of food where every mouthful had the same texture would be rather bland – no variety of crunch, creaminess or firmness. The same applies to a painting: we need a variety of textures to enliven the image and create interest for the viewer.

Even if you only use a single brush, you can vary the brushstrokes to give different effects. You might use long even strokes to produce flat colour, very little paint to give a broken effect, or dab the tip of the brush against the support, a process known as stippling. Stippling works best with a fairly stiff-bristled brush. Learn more about the types of paint brushes for acrylics in this helpful guide.

Brush stroke exercises

A good understanding of brush marks is the foundation of painting so our first task is to take a brush and explore the different marks it'll make. I like to use a whole page of my sketchbook for this, starting a new page for each different brush.

Acrylic brush strokes

Start with the very obvious marks – long or short strokes, dab, or use the brush on its side. Then try other ideas – twirl the brush, flick it, roll it from side to side. Increase or decrease the pressure or vary it throughout the stroke.

1. You'll find that the appearance of the brush marks will change with the thickness of the paint and how lightly or heavily you use the brush. Try either holding the brush nearer the ferrule or at the end; again, this will affect the brush marks.

2. Varying the brush mark size or the space between the marks will alter the tone.

3. Either draw around the brush or write down the name and size so you'll have a good reference sheet for the future.

4. Repeat the exercise for other shapes of brushes.

5. I use a specific sketchbook for this type of exercise so all my experiments are in the same place and they build into a really useful reference book.

6. Now choose one of the brush marks and repeat it so you end up with a patch of texture. Then do the same for a different mark.

7. Either use a new page of your sketchbook for each brush type or make a reference chart showing which brush made which textures. By now you'll have several sheets of brush marks and textures. As you look at them you should see some that would be ideal for waves, foliage, fur or bark. You can always refer back to them in the future when you need to convey a particular subject.

Brush strokes

Create patches of texture by building up repeated brush marks, varying the pressure and amount of paint on the brush.

More brush mark exercises

If you've already explored brush marks in the past or you'd like to explore further try the following:

1. Using additional layers of colour.

2. Double loading your paint brush by dipping the brush in a colour then the tip in a contrasting colour.

3. Repeating the brush marks to suggest a particular subject.

Now that we know the range of marks that our brushes will produce, let's put this knowledge to use in a painting.

Acrylic brush techniques

Using the right paint brush for a particular task makes painting so much easier and enjoyable, so these experiments lay the foundations for your future paintings. Another useful exercise is to choose a subject (grass, sea, tree bark or foliage) and see which of your brushes renders it most successfully.

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Acrylic landscape: demonstration

Our demonstration piece is an acrylic landscape of distant hills, rough grassland and foreground foliage.

We'll use a range of brush marks and practise the acrylic colour-mixing techniques we learned in the previous guide (if you haven't read Jackie's guide to acrylic colour mixing, you can read the full guide here). As this painting is just for practice and demonstration purposes, I'm using mountboard as a support. You could use a different surface, or a sketchbook page, if you prefer.

Top Tip

Before you begin a painting, plan which colours will give the mixes you'll need.

Acrylic painting

In this painting we'll start in the distance and work our way forwards. Our sky is going to be a mostly smooth, flat colour.

1. Using a large flat or filbert brush, stroke blue over the top third of the support to show the sky area. Skies tend to be stronger colour at the top and become paler as they recede towards the horizon so start at the top and add a little white as you work your way down.

2. Now add streaks of white to imply wispy clouds. Before you apply the white, wipe off some of the paint from your brush. Your brushstrokes will then break up instead of creating a solid edge and will look softer and more cloud-like.

Acrylic landscape

1. Now for the distant hills. Mix a grey-green from titanium white and ultramarine with tiny amounts of primary yellow and cadmium red in a slightly darker tone than your lower sky. Don't mix too thoroughly.

2. Use gently undulating strokes, varying the pressure and amount of paint on your brush. The streakiness will imply field or copses.

Top Tip

Paint with large brushes throughout. Detail was only applied sparingly at the end of the painting. Begin a painting with large brushes and progress to smaller; don't be tempted to use small ones too soon.

Acrylic landscape

1. Next we'll imply a hedgerow. A filbert is the best brush to use here, but a flat or Round will suffice instead. The curve of the filbert lends itself to the curve of tree or shrub. Again, we want broken strokes so don't make your paint too runny.

2. I used all three primaries with a little white to give rich, but muted colours. I created several mixes, varying the proportions a little to add interest and imply different plant species.

3. Dab the colour on lightly, in shapes that mimic trees or bushes. The hedgerow is too distant for detail so we're just suggesting bushy shapes. Gaps in the brushstrokes allow the viewer to see through to the hills beyond.

Top Tip

Choose just three primaries with white in this painting, mixing secondary and tertiary colours. While red and yellow are essential components, they are not apparent in the final painting.

Acrylic landscape

1. Taking a wide brush, start painting the rough grassland. Begin with a pale buff colour to contrast with the hedgerow. I mixed mostly titanium white and primary yellow with traces of cadmium red and ultramarine.

2. It's helpful to mix several tones of colour for the grassland and work quickly before they dry out. As well as buff, I used medium and dark reddish brown, which I mixed from all three primaries.

3. Begin each brushstroke slightly below the hedgerow. With a short stroke, flick the brush away from you to give an uneven, broken-edged stroke. Begin at one side of the painting and progress across to the other. Then take a slightly darker tone and repeat, slightly lower down the page, with similar strokes.

Acrylic landscape

1. Continue to work across and down the page, varying the tones and colours as you go. It's important to keep the tones separate. If you keep going over previous brushstrokes, they'll all blend together and you'll be left with a single colour throughout.

2. As you progress down the page, make the brushstrokes longer. Don't worry if there are some less pleasing patches. You can hide them with strategically placed foliage later.

Top Tip

Use different brushes and brushstrokes for particular purposes, adding texture and interest. Don't fall into the habit of using a single type of brush for all your paintings.

Acrylic landscape

1. Now that we've reached the foreground, we're going to add more texture and detail so I switched to a hog's hair fan brush. Using warmer versions of my previous colours, I made long strokes, flicking them away from me to create broken edges.

2. The streakiness of the fan brush implies individual grasses instead of a clump. Next, using a contrasting tone, I stippled the brush to suggest larger, coarser foliage.

Acrylic landscape

Finally, using a sword liner or a detail brush, add more foliage, varying the colours and brushstrokes to suggest different plant species.

Acrylic landscape

In the final painting, I painted birds, to add more life to my landscape.

The finished painting Winter Landscape, acrylic on mountboard, 14x13in. (36x33cm)

Jackie Garner is a Gloucestershire-based wildlife artist. Find out more about Jackie and her work by visiting her website, via email [email protected] or read Jackie's blog.

Looking for more guides to acrylic painting and techniques? Visit our ultimate guide to acrylics for a collection of helpful guides on everything from getting started with acrylics to practising acrylic colour mixing.