Tip: Bold and True Brushwork

I was introduced to a new painting term today. It is called "licking". Here is a description of licking provided by Stapleton Kearns:

"Licking is the opposite of putting a brushstroke on the canvas and leaving it alone. Instead the painter repeatedly smooths out and worries the brushstroke after it is made."

The problem with licking is that it destroys the interest and beauty in brushwork. The more you work and rework a brushstroke the more of its texture and intensity is lost. Crisp clean strokes are more engaging than flat blended stokes.

The next time you are at an art museum, look closely at the oil paintings that you really like. Come close enough to the surface of the painting that you can the nature of the brushstrokes. Usually there is more roughness to the stroke than you would imagine from a distance. The painterly texture you see is from the artist putting the paint down once and leaving it alone.

This is a close-up of Claude Monet's "Japanese Footbridge" painted in 1899. Note the texture and apparent spontaneity of his strokes.

Kearns goes on to suggest a way to avoid licking, or "worrying your strokes until they are lifeless." He suggests that we pretend we are laying tile. Make the tile on your palette by mixing the right color and than set that color in place on your canvas. After you lay a tile down you don't shove it around in the bed of mortar, or try to change the nature of the tile itself. You lay it in the right place and leave it alone.

If the color note is right no licking is needed. If it is wrong no amount of tweaking will fix it. If the stroke is wrong, scrap it off with a palette knife, or if the paint is not too thick then just place a new stroke over it. What you don't want to do is try to manipulate the paint you already put on the canvas. The more you fiddle with a stroke, the weaker it becomes.