Hi! My name is Ashlyn Anstee, and I tell stories with words and pictures. Sometimes, that’s picture books (like Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Select “Hedgehog”), or graphic novels (my series “Shelby and Watts”), and sometimes it’s animation (I’ve directed at places like Warner Bros. and Cartoon Network).
This column, “For the Fun of It”, will also have words and pictures. Sometimes it will be stories, or how-tos, or thoughts. A little bit of everything. Hope you enjoy!
Tools of the Trade
I’ve been painting for a long time. Pretty much when I started getting into drawing, I started to dive into painting. Acrylic was my early favorite, and I’ve since moved into mostly water-based media (watercolor and gouache). A lot of beginner art classes will involve a painting component. To be honest, I also just really love painting- it’s meditative, and there’s an element of chaos that doesn’t exist in digital art. So despite the fact that I work as a storyboard artist (a digital-drawing-focused career), I return to painting often.
The main downside to painting is how involved the tools can be. A lot of traditional art has that problem, that you need tools (and there are so many options, with many price points). I’m going to just talk about brushes today, but maybe in a later substack, we’ll get into the paints themselves.
Brushes
After painting for as long as I have, I’ve realized brushes are a very personal choice. There are many shapes of brushes.
You might be someone who likes a flat, square-ish stroke. Or a round soft brush. Or maybe you like painting with a small, precise brush.
BBFF - Best Brush Friends Forever
I have brushes that I’ve used so much, that I feel like they become an extension of me. When you use a tool over and over, you become accustomed to how they feel in your hand. The best comparison I can think of is how we learn how to type. You know exactly what will happen if you hit a certain key- and that’s how I feel about my brushes.
But brushes do wear out- their tips become less sharp. You might accidentally let paint dry in them (oops!), and they fray and become splayed. But please, please don’t throw them out. Because those brushes are my favorite! Let me show you some ways you can use these uggo brushes to create textures. I use this with gouache most often, but they really will work for other types of painting!
Dry brushing
Because of the wide, soft splayed tips of the brush, you can dry brush gorgeously. Use just a little paint, and see how it applies!
Splattering
I love splattering- all of my books have multicolor splatters throughout. It makes it feel like it’s shimmering.
Smooshing
Creating rough edges for fur is easy if you squish out your brush. On a nice brush, I will feel so guilty pushing it to it’s limit like this, but on my ugly brushes, I squash squish smash and see what shapes come out.
Blending
This might be the most obvious of the options, but blending hard edges is a lot easier with an ugly brush, and the imperfections make the final result more interesting!
Keep your ugly brushes
I hope this has helped you see the value in your old brushes! These techniques can also be done with any rougher brush (like think cheap school brushes!), but I do think th best ugly brushes can’t be bought- they’re like old friends. You gotta wait for it to simmer.
If you love my column, you’ll love
's newsletter! We have the same, wonderful literary agent (Kelly Sonnack!), and he writes about both life and book-making.I recently went to the LA Zoo to draw. I love drawing animals! My first experience really doing the draw animals trip was at the Royal Winter Fair- a rite of passage for Sheridan students everywhere. I’ve been refining what I need on a drawing trip ever since. My first and most necessary for me is a portable stool!
This is the one I’m using now. What I love about it is that even if you aren’t sitting on it, you can use it as a little table for supplies. It’s quite portable and light. If it’s been a bit since you’ve gone plein air drawing (and especially if your bones are rickety like my aging skeleton), consider grabbing a portable stool or chair so that you can be comfier as you render a sleeping wombat!
ok love u bye
Ooooh! I love an ugly brush! Big fan of a splatter too!
Yay for ugly brushes! I'm currently using some of my ugly brushes for gloppy (and brush-damaging) collage experiments. Thank you for sharing!