I would like some advice on exactly how to dry brush. I seem to be pretty good at washes and stains, but fail miserably at dry brushing highlights etc? I though you should just take full strength paint and brush off the excess on a piece of paper. Any pointers?

If the paint is too thick or too thin drybrushing does not work well.
Also, some experience is needed to see just how much paint you need to leave in
the brush. If you drag the brush across a paper towel, the brush should just
barely leave a trace on the raised bumps on the paper towel; remember too you
will be painting with the inside fibers of the brush so if the paint is just
wiped off the outside of the brush but it is still very wet inside, you will
make a mess instead of the effect you desire.

Yours,
A.V. Suvoroff

You can use your tactile senses to help judge
whether the brush is still wet enough to use
for dry brushing ie. not too moist with paint

Load the brush with paint, wipe in a paper towel,
test by dry brushing on the large knuckle of
the hand that holds the figure.
The sensation of wetness and the visual
demonstration-test of the drybrush on the texture
of your skins epidermis will help predict how
it will look on the figure, and whether it needs
to be cleaned and re-loaded, or just dried off
more in the paper towel.

Senses of smell, taste and hearing are of some what
less use in determining the precise point
and short time period (eg. 30 seconds duration)
a loaded brush is optimally useable for drybrushing.

One final note, dont be distracted while
drybrushing, if your mind wanders, the time
a particular paint-loaded-brush can be used
is wasted ... seconds matter when using
acrylic paints ... and we cant blame the
paint, for us choosing to wave a brush around to
accentuate our conversation, while it dries out...

Stan

Use a stiff brush. The brush should b relatively wide relative to the surface
to be dry brushed. What I am trying to say is don't try to dry brush with a
small narrow brush. This is not precision work. You slap it on.

Wipe almost all of the Paint off. Almost 'dry.' Lightly hit the high
surfaces. Repeatedly untill you have enough highlighting.

I black prime everything. Then I highlight all of the fig with white. Then I
so several coats of drybrushing on the main features.

Obviously you only dry brush the main features. Clothing, faces.

Stick the handle of a brush in your paint, or use soem other way to get
a small bit of paint, smear across your pallet.
Use a 'fluffy' sort of natural haired brush. Beatties green handle in
the UK.

Dampen the bristles by dipping in water, then pull through a paper
towel/hankey.

Touch the end of the bristles onto the smear.

OK, you now have a very lightly loaded brush.

First couple of times, try it out on a paper hankey or something so's
you can be confident that not too much paint is there.

Then draw lightly across any sort of grain on whatever you're dry
brushing. Say it's a cloak, and the thus has folds running downwards,
you draw across sideways, horizontal.
Errm, say you're raight handed.
Left to right - so handle of brush points in direction you're pulling
the brush.

If you still have difficulty, read my painting guide and forget dry
brushing over the top of the paint job, do it uynder instead, where a
heavy hand is not a problem.

Andy O'Neill

For small area drybrushing, I use a 2/0 brush with a frayed tip. The
trick is not to use too much paint. I brush my finger back and forth
until there is hardly any paint transferred, then I dry-brush the
figure. For large areas, I've stolen one of my wife's make-up brushes
which works really well.

Regards,
Bill

If you're still having trouble with dry-brushing, then the problem
might be too much paint on your brush. There's a very good method to
check for this. load your brush with what you think is the proper
amount of paint. Then just draw the brush lightly across the tips of
one of your fingers. If you've got enough paint on the brush, then it
should only hit the ridges of your finger prints. If both the ridges
and valleys both get paint then you have too much on your paint brush.

good painting

Jim McDaniel

I use a clean paper towel, that way I can judge by the brush marks how much
paint is on the brush.

blaze