Some of the most useful sizes of the more pointed brushes are shown on opposite page. There are, of course, sizes between these, and many larger; but these are what you will find the best. It would be better to have more of each size than to have more sizes. You should try to work with fewer rather than more sizes, and, as a rule, work more with the larger than with the smaller brush, even for fine work. You will work with more force and tend less to pettiness, if you learn to put in small touches with the largest brush that will do it. Breadth is not painting with a large brush; but the man who works always with a small brush instinctively looks for the things a small brush is adapted to, and will unconsciously drift into a little way of working.
The fan brush, such as here illustrated, is a useful brush, not to paint with, but to flick or drag across an outline or other part of a painting when it is getting too hard and liney. You may not want it once a month, but it is very useful when you do want it.
Care of Brushes.—The best of economy in brushes lies in your care of them. You should never let the paint dry on them nor go too long without careful washing. It is not necessary to wash them every day with soap and water, but they would be the better for such treatment.
Quite often, once a week, say, you should wash your brushes carefully with soap and water. You may use warm water, but don't have it hot, as that may melt the glue which holds the bristles together in the ferrule. Use strong soap with plenty of lye in it—common bar soap, or better, the old-fashioned soft soap. Hold several brushes together in one hand so that the tips are all of a length, dip them together into or rub them onto the soap, and then rub them briskly in the palm of the other hand. When the paint is well worked into the lather, do the same with the other brushes, letting the first ones soak in the soap, but not in the water. Then rinse them, and carefully work them clean one by one, with the fingers. When you lay them aside to dry, see that the bristles are all straight and smooth, and they will be in perfect condition for next painting.
Cleaning.—But from day to day you need not take quite so much trouble as this. True, the brushes will keep in better condition if washed in soap and water every day, but it is not always convenient to do this. You may then use the brush-cleaner. This is a tin box with a false bottom of perforated tin or of wire netting about half-way down, which allows the liquid to stand a half-inch or so above it; so that when you put your brush in and rub it around, the paint is rinsed from it, and settles through the perforations to the bottom, leaving the liquid clear again above it. If you use this carefully, cleaning one brush at a time, not rubbing it too hard, and pulling the hairs straight by wiping them on a clean rag, you may keep your brushes in good condition quite easily. But they will need a careful soap-and-water washing every little while, besides. The liquid best for use in this cleaner is the common kerosene or coal oil. Never use turpentine to rinse your brushes. It will make them brittle and harsh; but the kerosene will remove all the paint, and will not affect the brush.
CHAPTER V
PAINTS
Of all your materials, it is on your paints that quality has the most vital effect. With bad paint your work is hopeless. You may get an effect that looks all right, but how long will it stand, and how much better may it not have been if your colors had been good? You can tell nothing about it. You may have luck, and your work hold; or you may not have luck, and in a month your picture is ruined. Don't trust to luck. Keep that element out as much as you can, always. But in the matter of paints, if you count on luck at all, remember that the chances are altogether against you. Don't let yourself be persuaded to indulge in experiments with colors which you have reason to think are of doubtful quality. Keep on the safe side, and use colors you are sure of, even if they do cost a little more—at first; for they are cheaper in the long-run. And even in the time of using of one tube, generally the good paint does enough more work to cover the difference of cost.
Bad Paints.—Suspect colors which are too cheap. Good work is expensive. Ability and skill and experience count in making artists' colors, and must be paid for. If you would get around the cost of first-class material you must mix it with inferior material.
The first effect you will notice in using poor colors is a certain hindrance to your facility, due to the fact that the color is weak—does not have the snap and strength in it that you expect. The paint has not a full color quality, but mixes dead and flat. This you will find particularly in the finer and lighter yellows. You need not fear much adulteration in those paints which are naturally cheap, of course. It is in those higher-priced colors, on which you must largely depend for the more sparkling qualities, that you will have most trouble.
Unevenness of working, and lack of covering or mixing power, you will find in poor paints also. They have no strength, and you must keep adding them more and more to other colors to get them to do their work. All these things are bothersome. They make you give more attention to the pigments while working than you ought to, and when all is done, your picture is weak and negative in color.
Another effect to be feared from bad colors is that your work will not stand; the colors fade or change, and the paint cracks. The former effect is from bad material, or bad combinations of them in the working, and the latter mainly from bad vehicles used in grinding them.
I have seen pictures go to pieces within a month of their painting—bad paint and bad combinations. Of course you can use good colors so that the picture will not stand. But that will be your own fault, and it is no excuse for the use of colors which you can by no possibility do good work with.
Good Paints.—The three things on which the quality of good paint depends are good pigment, good vehicles, and good preparation.
The pigments used are of mineral, chemical, and vegetable origin. The term pigment technically means the powdered substance which, when mixed with a vehicle, as oil, becomes paint. The most important pigments now used are artificial products, chiefly chemical compounds, including chemical preparations of natural mineral earths.
As a rule, the colors made from earths may be classed as all permanent; those from chemicals, permanent or not, as the case may be; and those of vegetable origin fugitive, with few exceptions. Some colors are good when used as water colors, and bad when used in oil. Further on I will speak of the fugitiveness and permanency of colors in detail. I wish here to emphasize the fact that the origin of the material of which the pigment is made has much to do with the sort of work that that pigment will do, and with the permanency of the effect which is produced; and therefore that while a paint may look like another, its working or its lasting qualities may be quite different.
The Vehicles.—The vehicles by which the pigment is made fluent and plastic are quite as important in their effects.