1. Painting with Five Basic Brush Strokes
The absolute
The appositive
The participle
Adjectives shifted out of order
Action verbs

2. “ An amateur writer tells a story
“ An amateur writer tells a story. A pro shows the story, creates a picture to look at instead of just words to read. A good author writes with a camera, not with a pen.”
Novelist Robert Newton Peck
Secrets of Successful Fiction

3. Participle Brush Stroke
The next painting technique, a participle brush stroke, is similar to the absolute, but without the noun before the –ing word. It can be defined as an –ing word (or an –ing phrase) tagged onto the beginning or end of a sentence.
Here is an example added to our core sentence.
Leaping with powerful lightning strides, the cheetah gained on the injured zebra.
With participle brush strokes, you can use either one participle phrase as above or three single participles as follows:
Trailing, tracking, accelerating, the cheetah gained on the injured zebra.

4. Simple Sentence
The diamond-scaled snake attacked its prey.

5. Watch how the sentence changes
Hissing, slithering, and coiling, the diamond-scaled snake attacked its prey.
Watch how the sentence changes
by adding participles
Hissing its forked red tongue and coiling its cold body, the diamond-scaled snake attacked its prey.

6. Monday
Describe the cliff diver by using three participles either at the beginning or end of a sentence. Then rewrite your simple sentence with a participle phrase.

7. Tuesday
Create a sentence using a participle phrase or three participles to describe the ice climber.

8. Create a sentence to describe the surfer by using either one participle phrase or three participles.
Wednesday
Surfing in a Tsunami

9. Betty White Gets Tackled for Snickers Commercial
Thursday
Create two sentences to describe the tackle by using one participle phrase and three participles.
Betty White Gets Tackled for Snickers Commercial

10. Identify Participle Brush Strokes
Mud– all around, everywhere. The harder I struggled, the tighter it pressed, eager to swallow me whole. Soon it was all I could feel, sliding over my skin, filling my ears, pushing into my nostrils.
--T.A. Barron, The Mirror of Merlin
This paragraph has
two different brush strokes!
Men were on their feet, sliding into the water, dragging at the chains, wrenching until their wrists were bloody, shouting for help, some pleading for mercy from man and God, others cursing, thinking that they had been abandoned by both.
--Celia Tees, Pirates!