Blue Roan Draft Horse

Operative word being BLUE! For he truly is....

My friend Kathleen shouldn't encourage me to do blue and yellow, it's quite addicting! I love doing these little paintings, I take up my thirsty old watercolor brush, and waggle him through the French Ultramarine Blue paint. When he's good and soppy, I start to draw the horse on a gessoed mat board.

My poor brush, is a story in itself. I've had this same brush for years and years, it's the greatest brush and it's just like having a good friend. It always holds a point, it holds a lot of water, and it will mop up a lot of water.

Alas, the ferrel got loose. I took a wrench and pounded on it on one side, thinking that would tighten it up. It didn't work. So I pounded on the other side. It was still loose! I pondered my problem for a while, then I took a needle nose pliers, and used it to ram toothpicks all around the ferrule of the brush. I crammed so many toothpicks in there, who would ever think it would hold so many?

Then I soaked the toothpicks so they'd swell up. I then dried them out and drizzled gorilla glue all around the end of the ferrule where the toothpicks stuck out a little. I then took one of my hair clips and hung the brush right side up off my studio light to dry over night.

One trick to gorilla glue, you put it on top of water or it won't dry. Or at least that's been my experience, so before I put the glue on the brush, I wet it down.

The next morning, my brush was perfectly dry and the ferrule was tight as could be. So I saved my favorite brush! It now has a very handy glue bump on it, that makes it even nicer to hang onto, so that's a plus. I used my acrylic paints and painted over the handle so water can't get into the ferrule again. My brush isn't beautiful, but it's still functioning.




So there, now you see the friend I work with every day...:) My favorite watercolor brush.

The one who just painted this little blue roan drafter...
donna

Remember, you can find horse art, wildlife art, cow art, and animal paintings, for sale on my website.
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