Paint consistency and loading the brush

Does anyone have any advice on this matter? I can't seem to consistently get that perfect medium. It's either too watery, or too dry. I've heard that you need to load your brush all the way to the ferrule but I still seem to run out of paint really fast. I have a lot of different types of paint, but they're mostly Tag, Diamond Fx, Wolfe, & Paradise. If anyone has a link to a video demonstrating this, I would really appreciate that.
Thanks,
Kate

following

Pretty much the only advice I can give is just keep practicing. I have a lot of different paints and they all load differently with how much water they take to get that perfect consistency. What I did was load a sponge and put a base color all over my arm and legs, grabbed some brushes and my paints and started practicing until I automatically knew which paint did what. Hope this helps.      

If you are referring to split cakes/one strokes, Denise Cold has an excellent video for loading those.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiNN7qmTI9k&list=UUsYN71ZP3-7cny_UIBUb

I just played with all my colors last night this and decided (momentarily at least until another color entices me to another line) that perhaps I would just reduce to one product line in both brushes and paint.(Then a little little guy came up & I decided to paint him with Paradise which is an easy removal...so I decided on Paradise and Wolfe. But then there are those lovely Tag/DFX neons I can just dab on with a sponge....but trying to brush them on? I never can!

Ok. I don't know how much you do and don't know so I'm going to say it all and not assume anything.  

I say this because the last time I explained this to some one i got told "I know how to get water off my brush!!!" Again I'm just going to cover everything so nothing is left out, I'm sure most of it you already know, but I don't want to assume and leave something out.


Stuff to know about your paint:
Paradise is a Glycerin based paint, and is easier to blend and takes longer to dry. Tag, DFX, and Wolf are all wax based paints and will dry a little faster but you can get bolder colors. 

Wax based works better over top of Glycerin but not so much the other way around I find. They also don't mis together as nicely as they would if you were using all the same base.

Stuff to know about your brushes:
Real hair brushes don't work so well for most makeups, weed the real hair brushes out of your kit and switch to synthetic.

You also want to get smooth brushes, and not 'chip' brushes (as i call them) that are more rough.

If it looks like this

Banish it from your kit.

You want smooth soft brushes


If the make of the brushes isn't the issue it could be 'how' you are loading your brush.

How to load a brush:
Now that we know more about the tools we are using lets look at how to properly load a brush.

Water:
When you rinse or dip your brush into the water you want to take it out almost dry; you do this by putting your brush on the edge of the jar with the tip facing inward, then pressing a bit and letting the water from the brush drain back into the jar.



If it's a pretty thick brush, you might also want to give it a few pats on your brush cloth too. You want your brush to start out damp, not wet when you first go into the paint. This is because it's easier to add more water then to take away water from your paint.

Start with the least amount of water and add a little bit more if you find it's too dry by dipping juuuuust the tip of the brush into the water. The brush will act a little like a sponge and soak up the water on contact so put just the tip in the water.

Do this until you find a nice consistency, and as you are painting also be aware of the wetness of your paints, as you may not need to add any water to them afterwards for a bit.


Direction:
Yes it's best to load it all the way up to the ferrule you got that right, but more importantly it's best to load the brush by going back and forth in the paint.
Do you paints have 'holes' in them from swirling the brush in your favorite spot? This is rather common. But it's not the right way to load the brush if you want to get the most out of it.

Swirling the brush gets the paint all over the place on your brush, but it's not packing in properly along the bristles. Swirling will also damage the bristles of the brush and have them wear out faster. Finally by instead loading your brush back and forth, you are going with the natural alignment of the bristles and you will find your paint is able to 'flow' out of the brush much better, smoother, and most importantly for longer.

This will speed up your painting as you don't have to reload as often.

Finally, use the whole surface of the cake, don't pick a favorite spot to load from/ As said with applying water to the paints, some times one area can get 'too wet'. Avoid this pit fall by using different areas of the paint cake and avoid sticking to a 'favorite spot'. Bonus is this will also help your paints look better, and you can avoid that great hole to China you get with swirling, and using one spot too much.