A few months ago I got into a debate with myself about what the best way to use a paintbrush to prep color samples for use in the classroom. I decided to try a method that I had never heard of until recently: Rustoleum primer.
Rustoleum’s primer is a “primer” that includes a layer of white powder on top of a layer of paint. While you might think that some people might simply use the primers on their own projects and go about painting any samples they can, a lot of the questions we see here and in my online discussions center around how much of a difference the proper use of Rustoleum primer can make. In my experience, there is. In fact, it has a direct and direct effect on the performance of your paintbrushes.
I used a small jar of Rustoleum primer (I know, I was being a “grease monkey”), and a brush. I decided to try this, because I already knew I was working from the beginning up as a beginner.
I made a small area, on the whiteboard, using an inking pen. (I wanted a whiteboard that looked just as similar to a classroom as a classroom is to the street.) I applied Rustoleum primer to it and, after brushing the entire area with the primer, began to make sample areas (I didn’t bother with a sample of a whole room, I just wanted some areas to illustrate some concept of a composition). As I used the brush at a slower rate on the sample areas, I noticed that the entire space in the sample areas became brighter than the same area of the whiteboard that was not treated with Rustoleum primer. The next thing I noticed was that the color stayed nice and bright. With Rustoleum’s primer, I didn’t ever see the need to add more paint:
I used another brush, one I already had, and applied my regular paintbrush to each of the samples. The colors on my whiteboard stayed nice and bright. With Rustoleum’s primer, I also stopped using my regular paintbrush:
This technique, which requires no paints at all and, I found, produces much better results than using paint, is similar to how the original students at the school, who had never learned to use a paintbrush, would prepare a painting. It’s a great way to teach them to create color samples and to paint a composition.
I like the method so much that I made a photo