[JOAT]

The only time I will use a foam brush is when there is a large area to paint, anything even vaguely needing precision I use a small bristle brush. And by small I mean a brush that may have bristles close to toothpick size even, pretty much nothing larger than about 1/4. On the rare occasion haven even used a toothpick, for fine detail. And, if nothing still doesn't come out right, still have the option of painting over and start again, or just tossing it and start from scratch. Sometimes, no matter what you do, it just turns out to be one of those days.

 

[JOAT]

In my case, my shaking hand is due to my caffeine addiction. I didn't fire the painter, I just schedule my detail work for for first thing in the morning... BEFORE my first cup of coffee!

I remember years ago reading about the early years of making cars. One company had a pinstriper, whose job was to pinstripe a paint line along the entire side of the cars, by hand. He was an alcoholic, and couldn't even hold a coffee cup without spilling a good part of his coffee. But as soon as his brush touched the car his hand became steady as a rock, and he painted a perfectly straight line the length of the car. Then as soon as his brush left the are, back to uncontrollable shaking.

From the information I have, that is supposedly a true story. From personal knowledge of knowing an alcoholic or two, could well be. I guess the moral of the story is, you need to cut down on coffee, and drink more booze.
>

 

[JOAT]

Interesting video. Can't say it was a lot of help as such to me, because I don't paint pictures. I paint my wooden figure banks (may go back to making them), but since I lay out the pattern with a fine tip magic marker, it's like painting by numbers, without the numbers. I do paint the occasional cane handle, very occasionally, but normally only for my own personal canes, because I find painting them a real PITA. So any I paint for someone else will definitely boost the price up. I did learn a bit from the video - I looked at my brushes, and actually have some that are pretty darn decent. Even got two small foam brushes that I have not a clue what I'll use them for, but won't toss them. Got the foam brushes when I picked up a pack of I think it was 24 brushes, from WallyWorld, for around $2. Some of the brushes are quite decent, some I think are brushes for kids doing water paints, with the majority somewhere in the middle. I consider them well worth the price, because for the type of painting I do, they work out just fine.

Now, all my painting is with acrylic latex. Relatively inexpensive, water cleanup, no bad smell. I get the small cans. Very easy to mix custom colors, and thin it down enough and it works about like a dye, except you can make it any color you want.

I keep my brushes in a pencil case. Works well, but with my last brushes buy, it is pretty much packed. So found pencil cases with a hinged top that will work perfectly, should hold all my present brushes nicely, and will get some extras, so if I run across another good deal on brushes I will be have somewhere to store them. Also use those cases for my mechanical pencils, my pens, and my colored pens. For my colored markers have a deeper case that hold them all nicely.

 

[JOAT]

Must be the wrong paint then. :grin:

Nah, he didn't read the instructions.