Dragging is a technique for oil and acrylic painting.
There are a number of ways to apply paint to a canvas in order to achieve different artistic effects, including scumbling, glazing, overpainting, chiarascuro and dragging the brush. An artist who has the ability to use a wide variety of brushstrokes and techniques will have more versatility and expression than one who does not.
Technique of Dragging
Underpainting is a technique in which the canvas is painted over in a dark shade and then allowed to dry completely before any more paint is applied. Various brush techniques can be used with a dried underpainting, including scumbling and dragging. Dragging is a "dry" technique, which doesn't mean that the paint is actually dry but that the brush is. No water is applied to the brush, keeping the paint relatively dry. Only a little bit of paint should be used, and the action of dragging the brush across the canvas should be performed lightly.
Effect of Dragging
Because the paint is relatively dry and only lightly applied to the brush, dragging produces an irregular effect rather than a solid color. For this reason, it can be an effective technique for painting a patch of sunlight on a lake or stream. Sunlight shining on water appears to change and shift constantly in an irregular pattern, and the illusion of this same effect can be created by dragging a lighter paint over a dry blue.
Blending
Dragging can be used in oil painting in order to remove some of the paint and mix the colors. For the first stage of this technique, a "loaded" or "full" brush is used. This means a brush with a lot of paint on it. The next stage is to take a dry brush and drag it, without any paint on it, across the paint you've already applied. Dry the brush to remove any paint, and repeat as needed. The result will be that the original color will partially fade, and a new color can be added to it for a mixed effect.
Distortion
Dragging can be used to create a distortion effect. After applying the first layer of paint, take a brush without any paint or water on it and drag it lightly across the painting with horizontal movements. Applying the same technique with a bristle brush will result in a stripe-like effect. This technique is a popular one in modern art, and is associated with the work of a German artist named Gerhard Richter.
