An Introduction to Brusho by Hannah Shepherd

Although we have sold Brusho in store for quite some time now, I was only introduced to it fairly recently. Michele Webber (one of our watercolour tutors) ran a Flowers in Brusho workshop and I sat in on her demonstration in the morning and from then on was hooked. A lot of the basic techniques I learnt from Michele but I have experimented and researched quite a bit myself.

First off I should begin explaining what Brusho is. Brusho is, essentially, a powder paint. It is incredibly vibrant, water based and non-toxic so is perfect to use with children. It can be quite messy but is an awful lot of fun to work with! Brusho is very versatile and can be used in several ways. The most popular ways involve spritzing water over the top of the powder or dropping powder onto an already wet paper, but you can mix the colour straight into water and use it as an ordinary watercolour paint. The colours mix well together and with only a limited palette you could create an array of colours.

brusho water soluble crystals

Mixing the colours with water and using them as a standard watercolour paint is definitely not my prefered use of Brusho. Although the paint colours mix easily and well together because the product can be used in so many fantastic ways to create stunning effects I feel it is almost a bit of a waste to mix it with water and use it as you would an ordinary watercolour paint, after all you can just buy the paint premixed in a tube or half pan if that is all you intend to use the Brusho for.

The techniques Michele taught me during her demonstration were to get yourself a spray bottle and fill it with water. You then simply sprinkle the Brusho onto your paper of choice. Watercolour paper, unsurprisingly, works well with Brusho but I love to use Daler Rowney’s Mixed Media paper.  It is one of my favourite papers to use as it can absorb a fair amount of water before it buckles and is really quite inexpensive for what it is. Winsor & Newton’s Bristol Board also works well as it is such a beautiful smooth paper but you are limited to how much water it can take, so I would recommend using it only when spraying a small amount of water over the Brusho powder as opposed to wetting the paper first and dropping Brusho powder onto it. For this article I have been using Moulin Du Roy Hot Pressed paper for the majority of the pieces pictured.

brusho techniques

The way Michele dusted the Brusho onto the paper was by dipping a clean, DRY brush into the pot and tapping the brush gently to distribute the powder. I have also seen other artists punch a little hole in the top of the brusho and tap it out like that. I have found this way a lot easier after learning the hard way knocking over an open pot of Brusho. Personally I think it is less messy to make a hole and tap out the colour than open it up and dip in your brush but the end result does not differ depending on how you distribute the powder. You can achieve varied effects with your spray bottle and the powder. The further away you spray the more visible each dot of pigment is and the closer you are the more merged together they become, the more water you add as well will affect the outcome. You can see the different effects from the examples below.

Close spray and more water (left) vs Further away spray (right)

Wetting your paper first and then sprinkling Brusho over the top will create some lovely effects. It is a lot easier to control the amount of powder you put on and the intensity of the colours this way because when you are putting Brusho onto dry paper it is quite difficult to see so you can end up tipping an awful lot onto the paper and once you wet it you will get a really strong dark colour appear as opposed to a gentle splattering. When dropping it into the water you can add as much or as little as you like until you achieve the desired colour intensity and effect. It is also worth experimenting with which colours you are using together, like ordinary watercolour, some will turn quite muddy once all mixed together so apply the same rules as you would for colour mixing liquid paint.

brusho sprinkled on water
Wetting your paper first and then sprinkling Brusho over the top will create some lovely effects.

Brusho works really well with other mediums. Once dry you can paint over the top, draw over it and even print onto it. I have used masking fluid with Brusho to mask off areas of the paper I wish to keep completely clean and then once the paint is dry you can remove the masking fluid to reveal the paper underneath that has been protected by colour. This is what Michele did in her Flowers in Brusho workshop.

I have done a small example piece using masking fluid to draw out some flowers and branches and then once dry I sprinkled Brusho over the top. I tried carefully to only get the flowery colours (orange and lemon) in the area where I had drawn out the petals and then sprinkled the moss green and grey colours around the flowers to create a background. Once dry I peeled off the masking fluid and then used a Uni Pin Fine Liner in 0.3mm to add a bit of detail into the picture.

You will notice how the edges of the picture contain yellows, pinks and blues, this is because some of the Brusho colours contain a lot of different colours in them to create the one solid colour when mixed with water. The grey, for instance, is one of those colours. Below is a picture of the grey on it’s own (spritzed) and then mixed as a solid colour.

spritzed grey brusho

I decided to experiment further with what I could do with Brusho and other mediums. I used Tulip fabric paint over the top of some Brusho and accidentally found out a brilliant effect. The Brusho powder seaps into the tulip paint, which looks great, especially when using a white Tulip paint and vibrant Brusho colours.

tulip fabric paint brusho

I also tried out lino printing over the top. I have become really interested in lino printing lately but wanted to combine the two effects together and see and I absolutely love the results. I printed my lino piece so I had a reference for where each bit would be and then sprinkled Brusho over the dry paper to try and get the correct colours in the right place on the paper. I used moss green for the leaves and crmison for the flower.

lino print brusho flower effect

I have done various Brusho backgrounds underneath the lino and although I’m very new to lino cutting for a first attempt at using the two materials together I am happy with the results.

lino print brusho flower effect

In conclusion, Brusho is a product I would highly recommend people have a go and test out. At only £1.66 per pot, it is really inexpensive and is a great addition to a anybody’s painting supplies. Whilst it is unpredictable, you can control it to a certain extent (as shown above with the lino and the masking fluid/finerliner images). You could create some wonderful backgrounds for paintings, a leafy ground would look great in brusho as mixing a couple of colours together and spritzing from above would really give you the illusion of a blanket of leaves on the ground. We have had lots of discussion in store whether Brusho is lightfast. I haven’t noticed any of my work fading, however we have heard stories of people using Brusho and the paint almost completely fading. I have looked at the Colourcraft website where they do answer whether Brusho is archivally acceptable. Their response is:

Brusho is as lightfast as any other similar type of watercolour medium.  We have paintings here on site, by several artists, that are over thirty years old and just as vibrant as when they were first painted.  It is manufactured with the finest raw materials and has been carefully formulated to obtain the maximum intensity and performance from each colour.  Also, of course, Brusho has the added advantage of being an extremely versatile medium with an infinite range of possible applications. However, as an added protection for Brusho or any other watercolour paintings from damage caused by dust, dirt, humidity, ultraviolet radiation, smoke, scuffs and scratches – we recommend using a high quality UV spray. 

If you are worried about your work fading I would go by the instructions on their website and invest in a UV spray for added protection.