Paintbrush -- My Artist\'s Pen:

¶ … Paintbrush -- My Artist's Pen:

Why a Paintbrush is an Essential Item to create my Art on Canvas

My paintbrush is like my right hand -- or my best friend. It is an implement, an item, and a tool. But it is also like a friend, for whenever I wish to express myself, it is always there to help me speak on the canvas, and to unburden my soul through the use of lines, textures, and shading. This is why a paintbrush is such a unique and necessary part of the creation of my art, and perhaps every person's development of artistic skills, even if the artist ultimately chooses another medium to pursue professionally. Yes, art can be made with many other tools. Art can be molded from clay. Art can be sprayed from a bottle of paint. Art can be created from cutting into the surface of stone. Art can be created with computer graphics. But because of the paintbrush's ability to spread color and create images as a painting tool, because of its ability to create different marks and textures with the brush fibers, and because of the paint brush's ability to be used when creating art with other media, the paintbrush remains an essential part of my artist's tool kit and every developing artist's tool kit.

First of all, a painting brush can be used in many different ways to create art, even in a single work. A paintbrush is commonly used for painting, and to use it well is important for an artist, just as learning to blend colors, or to observe and plan the subject and the perspective of the painting carefully, when working from life. No matter how many people create art with other artistic media, from computer dots to a block of granite, painting will always have a uniquely important place in the history of Western art. This is one reason why it is so important, too, for art students seeking to learn about artistic technique and to find their voice as artists, to learn how to use a paintbrush. When a student uses different kinds of paintbrushes, paint, and techniques of painting, the student can better understand and learn from great works of Western painting. Learning how to use the paintbrush in one's own art better enables the student to draw from the works of the past, and use these works to fire his or her own artistic imagination in the future.

Yes, sketching is the first thing a student learns. But painting in color is the next logical step to learning how to become an artist. From learning how to create black and white sketches, artists proceed to painting to show the world in bright and unique colors. Although a knife or even fingers can be used to create art through sculpting or splattering on paint, brushes are still the 'pen' of the artist's trade, from which other techniques begin. An artist learns how to use a brush before he or she tries other, newer approaches to painting on canvas. Color through the use of the brush can be used to make the viewer feel something, even from a distance, or to show the delicate shadings of a person's face, depending on the type of brush that is used.

Sometimes, a paintbrush is used to create great circles, squares, and triangles of color that do not look like anything that can be found in life. The exciting, dynamic, and vivid use of the paintbrush show the viewer an imaginary world from the mind of the artist that only paint can create in its use of color. Sometimes a paintbrush can be used to blend colors on the canvas, to show the viewer what life is like, such as the complex expression of a human being or a scene in nature. A brush, in combination with the right kind of paint for the fibers or texture of the brush can create a uniquely expressive, human and startling idea on the canvas.

The brush can be large, small, as fine as a needle, and made from artificial or natural bristles. It can be dipped in oil or used to splatter acrylics or water-based paint. The combination of bristles and paint depends on the way that the artist wishes to show human life, and also the relationship between the artist, the brush, and the canvas. With the right brush and the right technique, the images in the mind of the artist become alive.

Secondly, a paintbrush can be used for creating different types of marks and textures on a canvas, depending on the way that the artist wets or twists the brush. Depending on the brush type and size, a brush can create lines that are as fine as a pen or as great and sweeping as the strokes an artist might use to paint a mural. The brush can create interesting marks and textures on the paper that cannot be made by ink or by pen or pencil. The uses of the brush are only limited by the creativity of the human mind. Or, to take a more conservative view the creativity of the brush is only limited by the art student's steady hand and technique.