Stop Forgetting Your Brushes!

Hello there! A lot of my advice is about how to get started quickly on drawing and painting, to make sure that you’re able to get to your canvas as quickly as possible and draw. And that applies to resuming artwork you were previously working on too. If you’re really in the flow and get a piece done in one sitting, hey, fantastic! But a lot of the time a painting might be multiple sessions, over multiple days, or even with a longer break in between. Once you’ve unloaded that painting process off your mind for the day, it’s easy to forget what you were doing, and often what tools and specific colors you were using. You can usually figure it all out again, but that takes time and interrupts that motivation that keeps you creative.

I’m running into this problem myself! I’m coming back to a painting I did a few videos ago and realizing that I forgot which brush I was using for my main color layer. What’s an artist to do? Anyway, my name’s Kanjon and today we’re going to look at a pretty simple technique for solving this in digital art. If you don’t consider yourself an artist but the idea has made you curious, check out my channel: you really can start at any age with no special talent.

In digital art, we’ve got this big ol’ layer stack. You definitely can paint all on one layer if you choose, but the power tools of layers, masks, and blending modes can help establish your own personal art process. I’ve got a little mini-course on all of that, but for now I want to throw some thoughts at you: have you ever used a specific layer for shadows? Ever kept solid colors on a set layer and rendering on others? Made layers for adding texture? For each of those you’ve probably chosen one specific brush or one color, and it can get overwhelming in not much time at all, especially if you’re coming back to a piece you paused. All these layers, each with their purpose in the piece… but what if we had another layer that actually had no visual purpose? You’re allowed to use layers for other things too!

You’re going to make a digital sticky note inside your art. Pop open a new layer on top of your piece. Any time you need to remember something about your painting, a color used or a specific brush, switch to this layer and write it down. You’ve probably done this yourself or seen other artists do this for colors, and it’s really nice when combined with an eye-dropper to switch back and forth. It’s also great for writing down which brush you used for parts of your process. I often find myself trying different brushes on new pieces for some variety. I’ll often have one for line-work and another for fills and shading, and they’re not always my same go-to brushes. I know I’m going to forget them, so I write them down on this layer.

There’s no need to name this layer or give it special treatment or groups: as long as you keep it at the top of your art it’s obvious what it’s for. Whenever I’m done with a piece for the day, I usually have some things that I know I want to work on next. This is the opportunity to write those down right here. Leave the sticky note layer turned on, save, and it’s right there for you the next day. You can use it as a little to-do list and erase things off of it when you’re done. Don’t over-plan, though, just write enough down so that you can pick things back up and keep going without needing to think too hard. Tomorrow you will thank you.

It would be super cool if art apps did this for you in some way. I’ve seen people requesting features like remembering a brush and color combo for a given layer and automatically switching to it. That would be so cool, yet I’ve never seen any art app actually add this in. I don’t mean making your own palettes and brush presets, I mean saving brush settings and colors for each layer into your piece. Wouldn’t that be neat? Let me know in the comments if you’ve found something that does this; I sure haven’t.

Does this work traditionally? Hell yeah, though… you probably won’t need to do this as much because your physical pencils and brushes will probably be next to the piece you left off with. But still, you can use a sticky note with little reminders, or scrap paper, or even the margins outside the main painting.

That’s it? That’s the whole idea? Yep! Sometimes the best secrets in art are the simple ones right in front of us. Those that we might have avoided because we’re not sure if it’s “proper” or honestly just forget about it. That’s what happened with my piece! I usually do write down my brushes and color swatches on a layer, but when I was prepping my previous video, I erased it by accident to doodle on more annotations for that video. Whoops. Hey, turn my mistakes into videos, why not.

Got any other markings or notes that you leave yourself in your artwork? Would love to hear of them in the comments. If you found this tip useful, I’d love if you shared with your friends, and subscribed if you’ve not already. Another thing you may find useful: July’s drawing calendar is up, refreshed for the month with a drawing idea for each day and write-in spaces for your own. Also a few videos ago I mentioned an effort called Bristle as a resource collection for learning to draw. That’s still moving along, but a little slower than I planned. Life do get busy, but, eh, it’ll get done soon enough. If you’re looking for a space to talk about art topics, I’ve got a Discord server with a cozy collection of creatures. Amidst all of the chaos I still make room for art and creativity, and I hope you’re able to as well. Chase that passion, I’ll see ya.