Useful tips for pet portrait painting
Brush types
When considering your pet portrait, an artist has many ways to apply paint to a canvas, but the most traditional tool is the brush. However, brushes come in many forms and it is important to make sure you are using the right brush for the right job. Although there are many types of hair used the two of the main types to consider are Sable and Bristle. These are the acknowledged best of the best in soft or hard brushes.
Sable brushes are traditionally used for their combination of softness, flexibility and strength. The sable hairs taper to a point, making them extremely good at creating a fine tip, ideal for detailed work. Although mainly used for water colour, they can also be used for any fluid paint, including oils, although great care has to be taken in the cleaning of these brushes.
Bristle (hogs hair) brushes are the workhorses for the oil painter, they're very strong and springy with a taper towards their point. In the very best types, the point itself splits into several smaller points known as a flags, giving the bristle huge capacity to hold colour. Inferior bristles tend to be less springy and cut instead of flagged. The bristle brush comes into its' own when using stiff paint or dry brush techniques, they also are good for texture effects like stippling etc.
Synthetic hair is a relatively inexpensive alternative to natural hair, they are great for general work and can take more abuse, however even the best cannot match the performance of sable and bristle brushes.
Painters' brushes are made in the following shapes; rounds, mops, flats, short flats (brights), filberts and fans. Rounds are the brushes that taper to a fine point. Mops are round brush that have a domed tip. Flats are fairly short haired brushes that are square and finish in a straight edge. Filberts have the short square heads but finish with a rounded tip. Fans have a thin layer of hair shaped as a fan, the fan is the only brush that is not used for applying paint but solely for blending and softening colour on the canvas.