How to load your watercolor brush for best results

SUMMARY: Find out how to control the amount of water and paint that gets into your brush for better results.

Do you sometimes feel like you’re painting blind? I mean, you dip your brush into your paint, and you have no idea what will happen once it touches the paper?

There is a lot of talk about watercolor brush strokes for beginners, but it can be so frustrating when your brush runs out of paint right away, or when you add a puddle of watery paint where you meant to add some fine details.

The solution lies in learning how to grab the paint from your palette and mix it with water before applying it to your paper.

In the video below, our watercolor coach Jess Rice shares with you the best way to load your brushes with paint and water. He demonstrates with both a round brush and a flat brush.

(You can also read the rough transcript below if you prefer)

Rough video transcript

So I'll show you a round brush first. What I want to show you is loading a brush full on and how you use less and less paint in it for a little bit more detail. So I'm going to show you a round brush and a flat brush.

But let's start with the round brush. When I first start out, make sure my brush is all nice and clean. Kind of wipe all the excess moisture off the outside of it. I'm just going to mix up a nice purple color here.

You can see I'm not jamming my brush all the way into my pigment. I don't want to get all that sticky pigment into my brush. I just dipped the tip of it in that wet pigment and pull that out to mix it up.

Then I can apply more pressure on my brush to load it further up into the bristle of my brush. Again, I'm going to stick just the tip of my brush in that wet paint. Pull it out and I mix it up out here on my palette.

So now that I've mixed up all this paint, I'm gonna add a little bit more water to it, really load my brush. I'm going to show you a full on brush load. So I've loaded water and paint all the way up to the top of my brush.

I could do a nice wide stroke by pushing down on my brush or I can ease up on my brush and do a nice thin line. With my brush fully loaded I can cover a lot more area with my paint. Wide stroke, narrow stroke, and just kind of keeps going and going.

That's the beauty of round brushes. All the way full you can deliver a lot of paint into your paintings. So now if I'm working with a little bit more detail. But I want lots of color. I just want to load my brush about halfway up, just so I have a little bit more control.

Mix a little bit more color up out here. Using a little bit of Cobalt Blue, a little bit of Alizarin Crimson, just to make a real dark purple. I want to mix up a nice vat of color here. Get most of it out of my brush and rinse my brush.

Get all the color out of it. Dry it a little bit. Run it through my fingers just to point it. And then I'm just going to pick up just the tip of my brush and a little bit of pressure about halfway into my brush. I fill the brush only about halfway up the bristles. So it only goes about halfway up. And now I have a little bit more control and I'm not releasing as much paint and water. I get a much smaller line, a lot more detail.

And I also could probably get my color a little bit darker, I can add just a little bit more paint a little bit thicker. Darken it up a little bit more, just a little bit thicker paint. Again, it's about halfway up the bristles and get my color much darker, much richer.

And this is for smaller detail work where I don't have a whole large area to cover. I just want to load my brush up a little bit. So, I'd say I'd use this probably in my first wash and then in my second wash, I'd probably use a little less paint on my brush.

Finally, for the round brush, more detail. So, for more detail I rinse my brush. Point it again. Let's get a little bit wet on it. Use a darker color. Now I want my paint to be really nice and thick. Just the tip of my brush in that sticky pigment. I just want about an eighth of an inch on my brush into the pigment. Don't plunge your brush all the way into it. You don't need that much paint. Just a little bit out. Pull it out. Mix it up on your palette. And just the bottom tip of my brush is loaded. Now come in for just really tight detail like on an eye. Something like that where I want to get, I want my color really nice and dark. I want it to be very opaque, I want to be very thick. But I'm just reaching back in here and just the tip of my brush.

Now I have lots of control and my color is nice and dark. So I have lots of control, I can leave lots of whites out, paint around things, but get nice and dark. I have so much control at the tip of my brush.

I probably use that more in my third wash. So, first wash full on brush load. Second wash not so much water and paint. Third wash where I want a little bit more detail and some darks. Just the tip of my brush loaded.

So that's the round brush. This brush is a number 14 round.

Flat brushes work a little bit differently. Same principles. But they just give you a different stroke. Make sure your brushes all rinsed off. Nice and clean. Again, I'm going to use this dark, dark purple, mix my paint up, make sure it's all mixed up.

You don't want that sticky paint sticking on your brush. You want to make sure it's all mixed up. Do all your mixing on your palette. Pull your paint out here and mix it up. Now, again, with a flat brush, I can fill it almost to the top of the bristles.

So that paint, I can push it as hard as I was pushing it up to about to there. So that's loaded to about three quarters of the way up of my brush. So again, say I wanted to offload a lot of paint in some area.

Slowly going to start running out now. I got a little bit more in there. This is a nice long-haired brush, holds quite a bit of paint. This is a half inch flat, so fully loaded I can get lots of coverage with my brush.

This is probably one of the oldest brushes I have, actually. My mom gave this to me back in like 1984 when I was just starting out with watercolors. It's been a great brush. It's got really long hairs on it, which I really like.

Now, same principle for a little bit more detail. Rinse my brush out, dry it off, kind of re-chisel with your fingers, between your fingers. Now I just want to grab just a blade. Just run my blade through there just to pick up some of that color.

So now I've just got just the tip of my brush loaded with color. And now I can do real thin lines. With a lot of control. Or thick and thin lines with lots of control. Just filling up just that very edge of the brush with that nice rich paint.

I can do thin lines, thick lines, with a lot less paint.

(Jess picks up a fine round brush) Now, of course, you can also use smaller brushes, you know, to get finer lines. And to get a finer line, same principle. Use a small brush, rinse it off, repoint it, dry it off on a towel, repoint it, run it through your fingers.

Now, I'm just going to use just the tip to pick up some paint. Just the tip of my brush in that nice wet paint. And now I can even do smaller detail. So just the tip, I don't have to plunge my brush all the way into the paint.

I just want just that very tip. Nice and sharp. Just for a little bit more detail. Of course, if I wanted a rounder line. Load this with water. Really load your brush. And you have a nice, thick round line. It's not so pointed.

Lots of paint in there. Get lots of coverage. A common mistake that I see students make quite a bit are plunging their brush too far into their colors out here in their palette where they're storing it. This is just the storage of your colors.

This is where you do most of your mixing. But I see students just plunge their brush right into the palette here. Stir it all up. And then they've got huge globs of paint on their brush. And you're going to be wasting paint that way.

So just pull out what you need. Mix it up out here. But also, think about how much paint you're loading into your brush. It's not just a full load of paint every time. It actually can vary a little bit.