Painterly Brush Set

Download the set

A painting app ships with hundreds of brushes and most painters use five. These painterly brushes are that five plus the specialists that earn a place: a hard round to block, a blender to turn form, a bristle brush to leave a visible hand. The set lives in the free brushes and resources library; its download bundle is still being finalized, so this page lists what it contains and how each brush is meant to be used.

What it is for

Made for the full painting pipeline, from the first value blocks to finished rendering. The hard rounds block shapes with crisp edges, the soft rounds and blenders handle turning forms, and the bristle and chalk brushes add the broken, tactile edge that keeps a digital painting from looking airbrushed. Most finished pieces need only three.

Painterly, in Tate's glossary entry, means visible, broken brushwork rather than hidden, blended surfaces, and that is the quality this set is tuned for. The bristle brushes imitate the ridged paint the National Gallery describes as impasto, a mark that reads unmistakably as a hand at work.

What is inside

The sixteen brushes by group, the mark each makes, and where it belongs in a painting.

Brush	Stroke character	Use it for
Hard Round (2)	Crisp edge, opacity on pressure	Blocking shapes and values; most of the painting
Soft Round (2)	Feathered edge, low flow	Turning forms, soft terminators
Blender Smooth	Smudges without adding paint	Long gradients on skin and sky
Blender Dry	Smudges with a bristle streak	Turning forms while keeping stroke direction
Bristle Flat, Bristle Round	Ridged, broken, directional	Visible brushwork, cloth, hair masses, backgrounds
Chalk Coarse, Chalk Fine	Dry grain, catches on edges	Rough surfaces, rock, worn cloth
Airbrush Soft	Very soft, 5 to 10 percent flow	Gradients, glow, atmosphere
Texture Skin	Fine speckle, low contrast	Breaking up smooth skin at the end
Texture Cloth, Texture Foliage	Woven grain; clustered leaf marks	Fabric near the focus; distant trees
Scumble	Thin, patchy, dry	Dragging light over a dark underpainting

Two hard rounds, two soft rounds, two blenders, two bristles, two chalks, one airbrush, three textures and a scumble make sixteen. The rounds do about 80 percent of any painting; the rest are finishing tools.

Settings that matter

The set is built for opacity on pressure and a fixed flow, so a light touch lays a glaze and a firm one covers. Change size freely; change flow only with a reason.

Starting settings on a 3000 px canvas. Percentages are the brush's own opacity and flow, with layer opacity at 100.

Brush	Size	Opacity	Flow	Spacing	Note
Hard Round	40 to 120 px for blocking, 8 to 20 px for detail	Pressure, 20 to 100 percent	100 percent	5 to 8 percent	Turn off size on pressure while blocking
Blender Smooth	80 to 200 px	Fixed 40 to 60 percent	n/a	3 percent	Above 70 percent erases form
Bristle Flat	30 to 90 px	Pressure, 30 to 100 percent	80 percent	10 to 15 percent	Follow the form direction with every stroke
Airbrush Soft	200 to 400 px	Fixed 20 percent	5 to 10 percent	10 percent	Never for shadows

A short workflow with this set

A sphere or a head, one light, greyscale first, following values before color.

Tips for getting the most from it

• Block in with a hard round at large size before touching a blender.
• Blend only where the form turns gently. Leave hard edges where the form turns fast.
• Use the textured brushes last and sparingly, mostly near the focal point.
• Paint value studies with this set in greyscale first to learn how each brush behaves.
• Move the brushes you use into a favorites group, as the getting started guide to the free brushes suggests, and hide the rest.

Pairs well with

Paint from the value ordered muted palettes while you block in, and finish with a pass of the paper and canvas textures at low opacity.

Common problems and fixes

The problems painters report most with this kind of set, and the fix for each.

Problem	Likely cause	Fix
Painting looks airbrushed and plastic	Soft round or airbrush used for shadows	Block shadows with the hard round; soften only the terminator
Blending turns everything to mud	Blender strength too high, blending across value boundaries	Strength 40 to 60 percent; blend within one value, never across the shadow line
Bristle strokes look like noise	Random stroke angles	Follow the form direction
Colors go grey when blended	Blending complementary hues	Blend within a hue family

Painterly brushes, in short

Block with a hard round, soften only the terminator, render with a bristle brush that follows the form, and texture only the focal point. Three brushes, in that order, is how these painterly brushes are meant to be used. Where each edge goes is covered in hard and soft edges.

How to install it

New to installing resource sets? The getting started guide to the brush sets walks through importing a set and choosing the right one for the job. For where these fit in a painting, see the digital painting fundamentals pillar, and browse the rest of the free brushes and resources library.

Sources and further reading

Primary references for the facts and definitions in this piece, all from independent publishers:

• Tate: Painterly: what painterly brushwork is and why it reads as hand-made.
• The National Gallery: Impasto: thick, textured paint that the bristle brushes imitate.

Common questions

What are painterly brushes in digital painting?

Brushes that leave a visible mark: a ridged bristle streak, a dry chalk grain, a hard round edge that stays crisp. An airbrush hides every stroke; painterly work reads as made by hand because the marks show both the surface and the movement of the arm.

What is the best blending brush for digital painting?

A smudge type blender at 40 to 60 percent strength, used only along the line where light turns into shadow. Blender Smooth here is for skin and sky; Blender Dry keeps a bristle streak. Blending across a value boundary is what makes paintings muddy.

Are these free painting brushes for Procreate only?

No. The set ships for Procreate, Krita, Clip Studio and Photoshop. Bristle and texture marks differ slightly between engines, but the sizes, opacities and spacing on this page hold in all of them. The bundle is being finalized for release.