Brush Pressure Basics: Creating Thick, Thin, and Tapered Decorative Strokes

Have you ever tried to pull one slow line of paint with your brush and change the pressure halfway through to create a thicker mark, then pull back to a thinner mark again? You may have found that the stroke thinned and widened, then thinned again. That’s the result of changing your brush pressure while pulling a brush stroke. If you’re always using the same pressure with your hand, you’ll notice that your brush marks are always the same width. You may have noticed that in order to get a thicker mark you must use a different brush. But by learning to vary brush pressure, you can get much thicker marks with just a little effort, and you’ll be able to paint tapered marks. You’ll find that many decorative painting techniques rely on pressure changes for successful results.

Thin decorative marks, such as curves, stems, connecting lines, tapered leaf points and petal tips, are all painted with light brush pressure.

Thick brush marks, such as petal and leaf bodies and ornamental and ribbon strokes, are painted with heavy brush pressure.

There are lots of different decorative painting projects that require changing brush pressure as you pull the brush. It’s this change that gives movement and life to strokes and motifs. The alternative is stiff, uniform marks which lack movement and life. It would be easy to correct the edges of poorly shaped marks to make them thinner, but this is not the goal of the lesson. The goal is to learn how to change the width of strokes by controlling the amount of pressure your hand uses on the brush. Painting the edges of the stroke to control the mark is a lot like wearing heavy shoes, as the marks will be thicker and heavier, instead of more refined and thin.

You can practice on your scrap materials to see how your brush responds to heavy pressure and to check to make sure your paint isn’t too runny or too thick. When your brush is too loaded, the paint may form a thick puddle with heavy pressure. If the brush isn’t loaded enough, or is too dry, it will tend to skip as you paint wide pressed strokes. If the paint itself is too thick, the brush stroke will break up and drag. Once your brush and paint are behaving well, you can continue on to paint a row of leaf strokes on your practice panel. Keep practicing until you feel that you can control the pressure changes well.

Practice: Paint a row of these leaf shaped strokes, each one with a light pressure beginning, wide and flat mid-stroke and lifted tapered end. Make each one just slightly different and leave a small amount of space between them to compare your results. See which ones have the best maximum wide areas. See which ones have the cleanest and best taper to the points. See which are the most even. Compare which sides are thinner or wider or which sides have a smoother appearance to the edges. How did you hold the brush differently, or move your hand differently each time to get the results you see?

The point of this exercise is not to make each leaf exactly the same, but to become aware of how you’re moving your hand.

The next exercise is even more tricky because you must change direction and pressure all at the same time. Try not to grip your brush too tightly, and don’t be afraid to make some of these strokes wider and others thinner. You may find that you must slow down to accomplish these strokes.

Pressure changes are used often in decorative painting to add movement and life to motifs and brush strokes. Petals, ornamental shapes, scrolls, leaves, flowers, stems and border elements often use pressure changes to create their shape and movement. These C and S shapes, featuring light beginning and end, and wide centers, are the basis for lots of decorative painting strokes and techniques.

When you finish your shapes, step back and see how your thick and thin areas are proportioned within the motif. Notice the shapes formed by the thick and thin painted areas. You shouldn’t have to paint the edges to make the strokes thinner to make them appear the way you want.