Hi! I bet you never thought ANY ONE would answer you....but I sympathize with you, as I am just beginning to learn how to use fan brushes for watercolor! I guess the trick is how wet the paper and how dilute is the paint. With dry paper, use a fairly heavier mix of paint, tap it on a towel, then use the edges (not the whole brush) to put foliage in, varying your brush strokes. You can also then use little pinpoints of water to meld some of the paint together. BUT that is just something I have done, EXPERIMENT EXPERIMENT EXPERIMENT. I've found that my own ideas and experiments with my watercolors have worked as well for me and gave me the most joy...better than "discovering" the answer in a book (AND, that's not to say I am a compulsive book buyer (smile). Somehow (and I BET a lot of artists do it) I think whenever I reach a plateau or even a stumbling block or heaven forbid "painter's block" buying a book or a new tube of paint will somehow cure it all!