SHIVA-This stencil brush has a 1/2" bristle end and a black handle.

You can get Shiva Stencil Brush here!
You can get great Craft Paints here.

ROYAL LANGNICKEL-7 paintbrushes with a free brush wallet. Includes 3/4" Glaze/Wash, 2 and 6 Shaders, 5/0 and 0 Round, 2 Script, and a Liner 6 brush. All are Sable brushes. All feature burnt red handles. For watercolors, acrylics, temperas, and oils.

You can get Brush Set Value Pack Sable 7/Pkg here!
You can get great Craft Paints here.

ROYAL LANGNICKEL-3 paintbrushes with a free brush wallet. Includes 3 shaders-2, 6, and 10. Dark blue handles. For watercolors, acrylics, temperas, and oils.

You can get Brush Set Value Pack Sable 3/Pkg here!
You can get great Craft Paints here.

ROYAL LANGNICKEL-3 paintbrushes with a free brush wallet. 3 sable details-3/0, 2/0, and 0. Dark blue handles. For watercolors, acrylics, temperas, and oils.

You can get Brush Set Value Pack Sable 3/Pkg here!
You can get great Craft Paints here.

LOEW CORNELL-1" Foam Brushes. Value Pack-25 per package. Disposable brushes to use with paints, stains and varnishes. Not recommended for use with lacquer or shellac.

You can get Foam Brushes 1" 25/Pkg here!
You can get great Craft Paints here.

Acrylic handle with ergonomic styling. This tried and true line is notable for its wide variety of brush styles, sizes and easy one price point program. No-slip rubber grip handle.

You can get Crafters Choice Sable Hair Shader Brush here!
You can get great Craft Paints here.

PLAID ENTERPRISES INC-One Stroke Fabric Brush Set includes 3/4 Flat, #12 Flat, #2 Script Liner, and 1/2 Scruffy brushes. Product is essential for the One Stroke technique and has been designed espeically for this type of stoke work.

You can get One Stroke Get Started! Fabric Brush Set here!
You can get great Craft Paints here.

Acrylic handle with ergonomic styling. This tried and true line is notable for its wide variety of brush styles, sizes and easy one price point program. No-slip rubber grip handle.

You can get Crafters Choice Sable Hair Shader Brush here!
You can get great Craft Paints here.

Technique is not the secret of painting. It’s not using tissues, toothbrushes, sponges, palette knives, cotton swabs or razor blades along with your artist paint brushes. Nor is it about “put a little blue here.” All of these have a place in our bag of drawing and painting tricks … but the real secret of picture making is composition.

Underlying all works of art (at all levels from good amateur level to great pictures) is structure.

On the first day in my English Literature class in my art university, the professor played “Bolero,” an orchestral work by Maurice Ravel and asked us what it was. The whole class squirmed and could not come up with an answer. Our professor finally said “it’s a crescendo.” That was the underlying structure. That was the idea. That was the organizing theme. Aside from Ravel having skills in melody and musicality, he was a composer.

Listeners like what they hear in “Bolero.” Some listeners have music training and understand on all levels, including understanding the underlying structure. Untrained listeners like what they hear and while they may not know it they like “Bolero” because it is composed. That’s why it is performed over and over in symphony halls. That’s why a ballet was created to dance to the gradual increase in volume and intensity up to the thunderous climax that ends “Bolero.” My English Professor taught me about composition in art using “Bolero” as an example.

Paintings have underlying principles that organize the elements of the picture in order to bring the eye of the viewer into and around the image in an interesting way and to organize the elements into a cohesive whole.

There are nearly infinite ways to structure a picture. Some are obvious, like a mother arching over and protecting a resting or sleeping horizontal child. Another obvious composition is the opposing angles of two fighters in a boxing match.

Some of the principles of composition:

• Beauty is organized variety.
• Variety equals interest.
• A picture needs a dominant element, a sub-dominant element and subordinate elements organized into interesting relationships. This creates order for the viewer so that you, the painter, can entertain the eye of the viewer with a varied and therefore interesting picture order.
• The dominant element can be made dominant by a somewhat central position, by size dominance or interest dominance, and through the complexity of the dominant element or its psychological dominance. For instance, the eye of a viewer is drawn to a human face.
• Those elements need to be varied in size and shape for maximum interest.
• The viewer needs to have a path to those elements that is interesting.
• Thumbnails … small sketches … can organize your picture before you get into the details.
• The negative areas (spaces between objects) are as important as the objects.
• The center of the picture is the most powerful … not the exact center … but the area around the center is where your dominant element gains strength.
• Tension between two elements adds interest (like the opposition thrust of the fighters mentioned above).
• Division horizontally suggests peacefulness.
• Those divisions should not be equal as that would create a boring picture.
• In a painting of a sky, mountain range and valley let’s say you want the sky to dominate. You would make the sky ½ the height of the canvas (3/6ths). But a linear (3-2-1) stacking would be boring. 3-1-2 is more interesting. So sky 3, mountain range 1 and foreground valley 2.

Art courses, classes, videos and TV shows that teach technique but don’t address composition miss the key to making good pictures.

To be sure, an understanding of technique, color theory, form, drawing, perspective and proportion need to be studied and developed but they should serve on an underlying structure.

Composition is the secret of painting.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Barry_Waldman

Hello and welcome back to another great article from us on oil painting brushes for the beginner. Since we started these great articles our goal has been to make sure that you buy the supplies you need to begin a great hobby in oil painting yet not spend a super large amount of money doing it. Oil painting does not have to be an expensive hobby as some make it out to be.

In previous articles we’ve discussed a variety of brush shapes and materials to help you start your hobby and oil painting. In addition to the types of brushes that we have talked about before there are wide varieties that you may not be familiar with. That’s okay, they really don’t concern you as a beginner in this hobby. Often times small specialty shops will convince you that you need to buy every kind of brush there is but in truth you often don’t.

As a beginner your brush selection does not need to be as vast as it would be if you were a well experienced painter. For instance brushes are sized by numbers which are based on the width of the bushes. This width measurement is taken at the furor. The feral is a metal sleeve holds the hairs in place. For most of the projects that you will have as a beginner in oil painting your best choices are the number two round and maybe two or three other brushes.

These can either be flats or brights and typically in sizes that range from a number four all the way up to number eight. It is not necessary to have every brush style and size in your collection as a beginner. Keep this in mind while you go shopping for your oil paint supplies as often times it will be the job of the sales associate to make sure that you walk out of the store with more than you need and more than you have to spend.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sean_J_Williams