The Shape of a Brush

What is in the shape of a brush ? A masterpiece that’s what. You see I picked up a brush a few years ago to paint and I haven’t put it down since. I’m a forever painter, meaning I will be painting today, tomorrow, and the next lifetime. Painting is the process by which I express my creativity on canvas. It is something that I enjoy very much and it is the right medium for me due to the way I use color and paint. For my paintings I take inspiration from the creations that are around me. The average person may not notice them anymore but I do. These creations are the birds, grass, trees, hills, everything that has been created on this planet. But of course none of this can appear on my canvas until I create my most valuable tool, a brush.

Everyday people wake up and use pencils, pens, crayons, or markers. But my weapon of choice is a brush. My brush is the most valuable component to my masterpiece. When my paintings are finished you don’t see the brush itself but you definitely see its work. The work it puts in is everlasting, tedious, and prolific. It creates thousands of strokes, mixes, and a direction that guides the viewers’ eyes from one end of my painting to the other. My brush is priceless. To create these works of art I must first create a brush that can handle impasto and thick oil. It’s amazing what a good brush can do for you. It can give you smooth blends, colorful mixes, and amazing texture. But a bad brush will give you terrible blends, awful streaks, bristles that stick to your canvas, and paint that will not move well. Eventually the fate of a brush like this ends up in the trash and your painting looks horrible because of it. But not me, I’ve decided to take a different route. For every painting I do I customize my brush to my liking by pulling out my scissors and doing a snip here and a snip there. Viola ! The perfect brush to create the perfect painting. Do you understand what I just did there. I’ve taken my tool and adjusted to everything that is needed to make my painting a masterpiece.

Brushes are expensive and funds are not always there. Items in the store are limited and when you shop it’s always the flat brush and the round brush but what about MY BRUSH. I just use my scissors and snip it to my perfection. As I paint if a bristle or two gets out of place I simply snip it again and get back to creating.

The result of my brush brings me great joy. At this point the paint is on the taboret and my canvas is ready. I dip my brush into the paint and I spread it across my canvas with safflower oil. The colors are vibrant, smooth, and shiny. Alizarin Crimson, Cerulean Blue, Lemon Yellow, whatever color I desire the brush can handle it. I layer each section getting thicker and thicker as I go. This creates an impasto painting that is visually pleasing and tempting to touch. The brush mixes one color on top of another layer. It could be a cool blue mixed with a sap green or a warm red with blends of orange. The result is pretty. The result is smooth. The result is impasto. The result is a masterpiece. These masterpieces have brought joy to many, not just me. It has shown the beautiful creations of this planet and it has kept me going since I’ve started it - And all that is due to the shape of my brush.