Paint and take ceramics
Canvas painting and classes
Beading
Walk-ins welcome
Parties and Events
Complete Projects begin at $6.95
Dry Brush Technique
Dry Brushing
The technique of using a dry brush with a minimal amount of paint in it to add depth, shading and highlighting details to a piece of bisque or plaster. The brush is dipped in paint and using paper most of the paint is removed from the brush.
1. Choose a piece with a lot of texture. (We chose this eagle)
![](https://www.paintedpenguin.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/dry_brushing_01.jpg)
2. Paint the piece a matte or flat black being sure to cover the entire piece.
![](https://www.paintedpenguin.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/dry_brushing_02.jpg)
3. Take a dry brush with stiff round bristles and dip the tip into the color paint you want the base of your piece to be (we chose a medium brown) and then wipe the paint off onto a piece of paper by moving your brush up and down, side to side across the paper removing most of the paint from the brush.
![](https://www.paintedpenguin.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/dry_brushing_03.jpg)
4. Run the brush over the piece evenly trying not to get the paint into the depressions and detail lines. This will provide a base for the rest of the painting. We left the base black as we are going to use a different color scheme for that.
![](https://www.paintedpenguin.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/dry_brushing_04.jpg)
5. Repeating step 3 with the color white we painted the head and tail of the eagle.
![](https://www.paintedpenguin.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/dry_brushing_05.jpg)
6. Next we used a bronze color and dry brushed the wings leaving the tips of the feathers alone.
![](https://www.paintedpenguin.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/dry_brushing_06.jpg)
7. Top view.
![](https://www.paintedpenguin.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/dry_brushing_07.jpg)
8. We then dry brushed the entire base gray, and then added 2 shades of green to create a rocky look.
![](https://www.paintedpenguin.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/dry_brushing_08.jpg)
9. We painted the beak, feet and eyes yellow using a small detail brush and then added black pupils to the eyes with a tiny detail brush.
![](https://www.paintedpenguin.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/dry_brushing_09.jpg)
All done!