The Art of Precision: Techniques for Optimal Brush Moisture in Watercolor with Jeannie McGuire

Your brush does a lot.

It makes marks. It carries paint. It expresses you as the artist.

It does a lot of heavy lifting to help you create a painting.

But artist Jeannie McGuire (Ep.88) wants to know: is it also sabotaging you?

In watercolor, the moisture in your brush can make a big difference in the quality of paint you get.

This is such an important variable for a watercolorist, that artist Jeannie McGuire follows the same system every time she uses a watercolor brush.

Her goal is a damp brush. Not wet. Not dry. Damp.

The reason for this comes down to accuracy. If the brush has too little water, it won’t move the paint like she needs.

And if there is too much water, it will create blooms and blossoms, which she isn’t after.

Here’s how she does it:

First, she pounds her brush into her water jar. This ensures that both the bristles and the ferrel (metal part at the top) are all holding water.She wants her brush FILLED with water.

But he doesn’t want to use it this way. A sopping wet brush would dilute her colors more than she wants.

So, next, she squeegees excess water off by running it along the edge of her water container and then tapping it on a towel.

This leaves her with a brush that’s damp. A damp brush will work perfectly with her thick pigments to lay down rich, bold marks on her paper.

Put it to Practice:

No matter your medium, your brush affects how paint moves when it lands on your painting surface.

In watercolor, we talk about moisture control, the relationship between water and pigment. (In the paint wells, mixing tray and on your brush.)

Learning how to control your moisture is a big part of learning watercolor. And one place you control your moisture is within your brush.

If your paints are weak-looking it means you have too much water in them.

There are three main places this could be happening:

(1) When you FIRST dip into your paint well you might be bringing in excess water from your brush.

(2) When you purposely add water to new paint mixes, you might be adding too much water.

(3) When you’re cleaning off your brush in water between mixes, you might be bringing a bunch of that water back in when you start with the next color.

Look at those three areas and pay attention to where you’re unintentionally introducing a bunch of water.

Once you find it, you can work to build the systems to change it.

Maybe it means drying your brush more fully on a paper towel before going back into your mixing tray.

Or, maybe that means starting with thicker paint pigments so that they can withstand that extra water.

Just remember that if you aren't getting the boldness of color you see others getting, the first place to look as a watercolorist is how much water you're adding to your paint mixtures.