Blends

[patindaytona]

When your blending a fairly large expanse on the canvas and you put something into it, such as a bird in the sky, and then that brush stroke didn't go down very well at all, so you try and wipe that tiny part out. Now...the entire blend of the sky is very very difficult to mend without looking like you worked on that area of it with a tiny brush. Or even a large brush will somehow drag over that spot unevenly. Not like the original sky. It's always the blending that is hard to fix. Every time I try to paint in something very tiny, my hand is not real steady, and i do try to support it on a stick or something even. It's just wiggling! So, a tiny bird, or something always has to be redone several times.

[patindaytona]

It's like Nolan said somewhere I read....not too much, not too little. That's really what it's all about.

[Kelley]

I did the same thing to one of my paintings. I added sea gulls that were supposed to be trailing a sailboat, but I put them too close to the edge of my boarder.   I ended up scraping the paint off with a palette knife as much as I could then painting over that portion of the sky...which actually turned out for the better.

I've seen where some artists support their arm over the painting with some plastic, wood or paper (dry of course) to paint a specific area.  I wonder if there is a type of sliding support that can be made that attaches to the easel specifically for this.  Maybe I'm over-thinking this.

[nolan]

I don't have a mahl stick, just use one of my big brushes in my left hand.

When adding finishing touches like a few birds in the sky or chickens on the ground, practice on your palette first until you feel confident enough to get it right first time.

Or you could also wait until the paint is dry and then use the transparency trick for practice. As the paint underneath is dry, it becomes less painfull to remove an error

[Kelley]

Problem is I learned your trick after I did the painting. Lesson learned twice.

[nolan]

  , but at least you know now