Far too wet and windy to do anything but paint inside today. I have long wanted to paint some trees along the side of the small roads around here, as trees in Winter are some of the most fun things to paint, especially when you use only a rigger brush (long hairs like a sign-writer’s brush) to paint the whole tree from bottom to top. It’s surprising the number of different marks you can make simply by varying the pressure on the brush and using the side of the hairs as well as the tip.
Riggers don’t have to be reserved for painting only the rigging on sail boats, (their original purpose). They can be used for painting a variety of marks, especially in landscapes or urban scenes – think trees, fences, telegraph poles, overhead wires…
Love your rigger and let it give you looser, more expressive marks to capture the sense of the place.
Graham Findlay Watercolours 