newbie. ..simple question

Im new to the forum and have self taught myself photoshop over the last year...but one thing keeps bugging me and I cant work out how to fix it..hopefully someone here could help please.

When I ratazise type on my fanart, and I go to use a brush, the brush shows up as a crosshair sort of shape instead of the actualy shape of the brush, which when making avatars etc you need to be able to see where you are placing it, am I doing something wrong somewhere please. Usually if I close PS and reopen it, the shape is back, but not always..its driving me nuts

Make sure
EDIT>Preferences>Display & Cursers is set to "brush size" on your painting cursers

Thank you so much for the quick answer..appreciate it....one more question if I could please....does anyone know how to use these icon mask brushes..I have looked for PS tuts on these everywhere but cant find any...only for PSP which means nothing to me.....obviously you cant put them over your pic on your icon as it covers everything so there must be a trick to it..but I cant work out what it is....

They are to be used on layer masks

Do a search on this forum about layer masking and you'll figure out how to use them.