The following tip was submitted by one of my subscribers, Pierre Privat from France. Thanks Pierre! I appreciate the tip!  This will certainly prove to be helpful.

More information about Pierre can be found by visiting the link below:

http://community.how-to-draw-and-paint.com/profile/PierrePrivat 

(Click images for larger views)

Find a short tube (about 5 cm long, 1 cm inner diameter, e.g. a section of plastic tube, or of reed or bamboo… ) and five or six rubber bands 150 x 2 mm.

Make a bunch with the rubber bands and fold it once, then twice. Hold them tight !

With a piece of thin string or wire placed at the last fold of the rubber bands and passed through the tube, pull the rubber bands through the tube until about 2 cm protrude at the other end.

This is done more easily if you use a small amount of almost dry soap around the rubber band bunch (the soap will then dry and hold the rubber bands better inside the tube).

Then, with scissors, cut the protruding buckled ends, one by one, and trim the ‘brush’ end as straight as possible. There should remain about 1 or 1.5 cm rubber ‘hairs’ at the end of the tube.

To use this ‘foliage brush’, just dip it into paint on your palette (you can dip into several colours…) and gently dab it vertically onto your canvas. You can also dab-and-drag to suggest grasses.

Warning : to clean your ‘foliage brush’ never use solvent ! Just wipe it clean, then wash it with soap and water (solvents will dissolve rubber !).

Of course, you can make several ‘brush’ sizes, depending on the diameter of the tube and of the number of rubber bands you use.

On the attached photos, there’s one ‘large’ brush made with a section of water pipe, and a ‘small’ brush made with a piece of an empty roller-pen (!).

It’s worth trying, the results are great. It works for oils, acrylics and also watercolours. Have fun !

Pierre Privat