The "Two Brush" Blending Technique

In honor of this 3 day Labor Day weekend, I've dedicated myself to learning the "Two Brush" blending technique that has been talked about much lately. If you aren't familiar with it, here's a video clip of Ron Kruzie at GenCon Indy 2006 using the two brush technique to highlight.

The concept is relatively straightforward, but I'll defer to a description by Matt DiPietro on one of the Privateer Forum threads (the post is buried somewhere in the thread):

"One method is called pushing and the other is called pulling and they are often used in conjunction. You can also just run your blending bush (you're using two brushes I assume) along the edge of your fresh paint and just smooth the transition. Pushing paint is kind of like using your second brush like an eraser. Highlights are much harder to do than shades using blending so if you're just starting out you should start with shading. lay down a midtone as your base coat and make sure that there is absolutely no patchy bits. Then choose a color for your shadows. glob a bunch of paint into the a crevice of your model then use a second brush that has been wetted with blending medium (aka saliva*) use it to pull some of that paint out of the crevice. If you pull too much or too far just push the paint back in to the crevice/fold repeat until satisfied. Afew tips... if you get water marks/bath rings when you blend adjust the consistency of your paint; too much water and you'll get a ring not enough and the same thing happens. Use your best brush as your blender and your more worn brush as your paint aplicator. It often helps to use a bigger brush for blending, I use a #2 almost exclusively, even for fine details. Once you've mastered blending your shading then move on and try highlighting at least thats my advice."

So, with the video, description, plenty of W&N S7's, and a fresh load of motivation, I am embarking on learning this technique this weekend. I'll post notes as I go along, and if I get extremely motivated, I'll even try to take a little bit of video with my new camera and see if I can post it.