Paint Loosely with Paddle Brushes | Are they any good?!

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Today I’m spending the day in my studio trying out some new paddle brushes that I’ve been very excited to get my hands on. These are short-handled, synthetic paddle brushes that I ordered from Temu, and I wanted to see how they actually perform in a real painting session.

In this video, I test them out by painting a loose landscape and a couple of small abstracts, focusing on staying free, expressive, and playful with my brushwork. I mainly use the 2 inch paddle brush, with a bit of the 1 inch for smaller details, and I talk through what I like about them, how they compare to traditional flat and hake brushes, and whether they’re worth adding to your brush collection.

This isn’t a step-by-step paint-along tutorial, but more of a brush review and demonstration — showing how they behave on wet paper, how much paint they hold, the edges they create, and how versatile they are for both big sweeping washes and looser details like misty trees.

In this video you’ll see:

Testing synthetic paddle brushes (1” and 2”)

Loose watercolour landscape painting

Big sweeping skies and soft diffused washes

Dry brush textures and misty trees

Pros and cons of budget paddle brushes

Comparisons to flat and hake brushes

Tips for painting loosely and avoiding over-detail

I’m painting on Arches cold press paper (on a block) and using a limited palette including cerulean blue, turquoise, raw umber, yellow ochre and payne’s grey.

If you’ve seen my other tutorials, you’ll know I love flat brushes — and these felt very comfortable to use, especially with their shorter handles (great if you have smaller hands like me). They even encouraged a bit of “playtime” in the studio, which is always a good thing.

I’ll also link below to my hake brush tutorial, where I go into more detail about painting loosely and embracing expressive brushwork:
https://youtu.be/CI_XRJUdl2U

If there’s one of these paintings you’d like to see turned into a full tutorial, just let me know in the comments — I’d be happy to add it to the channel.

Thanks so much for watching, and I hope you find this useful.
See you in the next video — bye for now 👋

Видео Paint Loosely with Paddle Brushes | Are they any good?! канала CandiceSmallArt