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Q&A #01 – How to Make an Eraser out of a Photoshop Brush

How to make an eraser out of a brush in Photoshop
How to make an eraser out of a brush in Photoshop

Q: George asked me in an email: “Is there any way to use these brushes as an eraser?”

A: Yes! If you’re painting or drawing in Photoshop using a brush that has a nice organic brush stroke and you want to correct or erase part of your painting using an eraser that has the same look and feel of your brush instead of the default Photoshop erasers there are a number of ways to do so in Photoshop.

Perhaps the easiest is to switch your brush mode from ‘normal’ to ‘clear’ which will essentially turn your current brush into an eraser, with all it’s settings in tact. But what if you have switched brushes or recently changed the settings of your brushes and want to go back to a previous brush? There’s an easy way to do that as well. With your eraser tool selected, just open the brush preset panel and you will see the history of the last seven brushes you used in order. Simply select the one you want to use and your eraser now takes on almost all the properties of that brush.

See how it’s done in this 45 second video:

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Free GrutBrush of the Week #38 – “Will Do” Photoshop Charcoal Brush

Drawn with the 'Will Do' Photoshop charcoal brush

This week’s free Photoshop brush is “Will Do” a cottony soft charcoal brush that can build to a full, more textured fill. This brush is a good soft shader when used with a light touch as it has a powdery softness and can be used to build up tones quite lightly.

A cat seemed a fitting subjects and I attempted a drawing of my old friend Charlie, who through my clumsy stylus work seems to have turned from a grey 18 year old (at the time of the reference photo I used) into a bit of a calico kitten, but no matter, I think his essence is still in there. You can download this week’s free Photoshop brush until next Monday when, as always, there will be a new one waiting for you at grutbrushes.com/freebrush

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Free GrutBrush of the Week #36 – “Bed Kelp” Photoshop Ink Brush

Photoshop Ink Brush drawing done with the Bed Kelp Photoshop brush

This week’s free Photoshop brush is “Bed Kelp” a delicously messy ink brush with a ragged edge that starts as a medium wash but ramps up quickly to a full viscous black… and I just can’t stop doodling with it, I truly love sketching with this brush. Despite it’s jagged texture and crumbling edges it has a nice continuity with the appearance of a long trailing stroke which can taper to a fairly fine tip. You can download it in the shop ( grutbrushes.com/shop ) or on the free Photoshop brush page: grutbrushes.com/freebrush

You can download this week’s free Photoshop brush until next Monday when, as always, there will be a new one waiting for you. Meanwhile, for a change of pace, don’t miss out on the free Lightsaber brushes that seem to have hopped on a viral wave that has kept the website flooded with new visitors all day: grutbrushes.com/drinksaber

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Free GrutBrush of the Week #35 – “Bran Chatter” Photoshop Watercolour Brush

painted with the 'Bran Chatter' watercolour Photoshop brush

This week’s free Photoshop brush is a very fibrous textured watercolour brush called Bran Chatter. You can download it in the shop ( grutbrushes.com/shop ) or on the free Photoshop brush page ( grutbrushes.com/freebrush )  If you want to download the paper texture (PSD file) just click the download button below

You can download this week’s free Photoshop brush until next Monday when, as always, there will be a new brush.

You can watch a video of me painting this here

 

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“Kays Way” a Soft Chalky Photoshop Pastel brush

Drawn with the Kays Way Photoshop brush

This was sketched with ‘Kays Way’ the newest arrival in the brush shop today. It’s a fibrous natural media brush that is wiry and scratchy at the lowest pressure but gets soft and wooly at the highest stylus pressure. This highly textured pastel brush has low coverage making it a good impressionistic shader.
grutbrushes.com/shop/

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Brush Stroke Scratch Pad Nov ’15 – New Photoshop Brushes in the Workshop

Here’s the scratch pad from yesterday’s brush experiments in the workshop. These are scrawlings from a number of different unpublished Photoshop brushes that I am working on. About half of them are oil impasto brushes, the rest are natural media or gouache brushes.  (Visit the blog post to zoom in and explore the detail of the brush strokes by holding/tapping to magnify)

Perhaps more interesting though, the background is a paper texture (a seamless tile) that is also part of an upcoming series of papers and art surfaces that I am creating. They are PSD files that include several layers and settings to enhance the effect of the paper. The idea is to affect the appearance of the digital ink or paint, simulating real world phenomena such as surface depth, absorption and media pooling and not merely a background over which colour is applied. I plan to release the first ones for free on the site, starting soon (next week?) I will make a special page in the resources where freebies such as these will be available to download. Stay tuned to the blog for updates

 

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Free GrutBrush of the Week #34 – “Fin Summit” Photoshop Ink Brush

Leaves painted with the Fin Summit Photoshop ink brush

Back to line drawing! This week’s free brush is an ink brush with a relatively slender line which drops off and becomes intermittent at the lowest pressure but fattens up nicely at full pressure for a nice variable taper. This ink brush has a slightly worn edge which gives it a warm feel verging a bit more on the painty side of ink. The shading in the background was done with the ‘Damp Nakpin’ watercolor brush.

You can download this week’s free Photoshop brush until next Monday when, as always, there will be a new brush.

 

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Doodling in Photoshop With ‘Swash Wanted’ a new Photoshop Gouache Brush

Swash-Wanted-Photoshop-Gouache-Brush-Painting

This one is a fixed width rough and dry Gouache Photoshop brush with the characteristics of an old house painters brush found stashed behins the basement furnace. This brush works best with a lighter touch to reveal it’s dirty dry brush sparsity but you can go full pressure for total coverage at full opacity while keeping your edges ragged.
grutbrushes.com/shop/photoshop-brushes/swash-wanted-photoshop-gouache-brush/

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GrutBrushes Brush Stroke Guides Updated With 30 New Photoshop Brushes

Download cheat sheet for all GrutBrushes Photoshop brushes

The November update to the GrutBrushes cheat sheets & brush stroke guide is here with about 30 new brushes added since the last update.
You can see it online and hover/tap to magnify the brush strokes (the prettiest way to preview) or download one giant Jpeg or PDF

While this is a great way to get a good overview of what all your brushes look like in one go, don’t forget the all important animated brush stroke preview that you get when you click on the red ‘play’ button on every single brush in the brush shop

You can access and see all of these on the brush guides resources page

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