Professional Brush Loading

[Alison]

More and more I'm seeing that the really 'up there' Face-Painters load
their brushes (split cake or not) with a back and forth motion.
Not the round and round craters that I do.

Is that a 'rite of passage'?  Like, something that people learn/incorporate
when they  develop to a certain point?

[MandiIlene]

I think I was tired of getting the deep pit in the middle of the paint like I used too and having to spoon the cake down after a few gigs.

My first year at the FABAIC I sat down with a set of ladies and started to paint with them, and they both looked at my paints then at each other and said "Oh we have a weller"

I wasn't sure that really was supposed to mean at the time, they didn't say it rudely, just meant that was my style of using my paints. I made a big well in the middle, especially the black.

I still sometimes circle the pot when i am trying to get it in a pointed tip, but then sometimes I go back and forth and then just spin the brush to get the tip. I never really paid that much attention before those ladies said something to me.
~*~Mandi~*~

[Sherry]

I took one professional class with Mark Reid and I think he loaded it like that.  I do remember him pulling it flat to pick up the paint.  He also showed us how to twirl it make a point.  He did that while painting as well.  He showed us how to do the tiger stripe and then toward the end, he twirled it to make a point.

He told me not to flick the brush.  I have a tendancy to do that sometimes.

[Alison]

And You, Sherry?  You with your beautiful professional work -
Do you make a well?
 or a stripe?

It's too hard to try striping when my paints all have holes in them.
I hope I re-train myself when I get a chance to use freshly filled containers.

[Sherry]

I started out making wells, it just seemed to happen naturally but lately I think my cakes do look more stripey.  I'd never thought about it too much.  I think the well helps when painting.  So I did manually dig out a well in a couple of my cakes.  I like to have a well of water, because then the cakes don't get too wet.  I can dip my brush in the water part and then run over the cake.

[PatB]

Oh-Oh. I'm a flicker AND a weller.   

PatB

[Alison]

Oh-Oh. I'm a flicker AND a weller.   :)atB

How can that be?  Isn't the well annoying if you try to flick?

[Sherry]

The flicking is when you're painting on the face, not when you're loading the brush.  At least that was the flicking I was talking about.  When I end a stroke, I sometimes have the tendency to flick the brush.  When I took Mark Reid's class, he said not to flick it.

[GaFacepainter]

I like the well at the bottom, probably because I'm just use to it, but I like it for when I want to thin the paint for some fine detail work. Seems to go on thinner and w/out clumping.