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Resmi küçük bir fırçayla boyuyor.

Resmi küçük bir fırçayla boyuyor.
He is painting the picture with a small brush.
From Lesson 63:Means and accompaniment (ile, -(y)lA)·Turkish

Questions & Answers about Resmi küçük bir fırçayla boyuyor.

How does the word fırçayla mean with a brush?
fırçayla is made from the word fırça (brush) and the suffix form of ile (with). Since fırça ends in a vowel, we need a buffer letter y before adding the suffix. We use -la instead of -le to follow vowel harmony with the hard vowels in fırça, making it fırça + y + la = fırçayla.
The dictionary word for picture is resim. Why is it written as resmi here?
Two things happen here. First, we add the specific direct object (accusative) suffix -i because the picture is the specific thing being painted. Second, resim is a word that drops its second vowel when a suffix starting with a vowel is added. So, resim + -i becomes resmi, not resimi.
Why does it say küçük bir fırçayla instead of bir küçük fırçayla?
In English we say a small brush, but in Turkish, the word bir (a/an) usually goes between the adjective and the noun. The standard pattern is adjective + bir + noun. So small a brush becomes küçük bir fırça.
The root of the verb to paint is boya-. Why is it boyuyor instead of boyayor?
When a verb root ends in a or e (like boya-), that ending vowel changes when you add the present continuous suffix -yor. The a narrows to u to harmonize with the o in boya, giving us boyuyor.

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