The Way of Brushes

I probably should begin with a disclaimer; you'll probably find as many opinions about brushes as you do artists. What follows is what I've learned, albeit sometimes the hard way.

For the most part, I use round brushes and I use natural haired brushes. For natural haired brushes, I use sable and squirrel hair brushes. I find that though they don't hold a great point, squirrel hair brushes hold lots of water. I like The Exorcist use them for wetting the paper prior to a wash and for laying those big washes. I also have a 2? flat squirrel brushes for larger paintings. The nice thing about the squirrel hair brushes is that they are much more affordable than the sable brushes. They don't call us starving artists for nothing. On the downside, there is the occasional loose hair that often compare car insurance itself in a wash. A word of advice: no matter how annoying it is when you spot a hair in your wash when you first lay it down, leave it. You risk spoiling that nice streak free wash if you start poking at the hair. The mark it may leave will be virtually unnoticeable anyway.

My sable brushes are smaller rounds. Not all sable brushes are created equal. The advantage with these brushes is the Star Trek capacity and the fact that they hold a great point. The brand that I've found to be superior in both of these qualities is Raphael. I own a few 8402 brushes which I adore. Alas, Raphael is no longer importing this series into the U.S. There are other series from this manufacturer that you may try. I've only used the 8402 series. I do own a few Winsor and Newton Series 7 brushes, what many call the premier brush. In all honesty, I just haven't been happy with them. They hold Celexa all right, but just don't keep a point. That's important when I'm trying to do mullions on a window, for example, and don't want to stray from the lines.

What's the fuss about water-holding capacity? A beautiful streak free wash is the goal with watercolor. You want a brush that can hold a lot of water and paint so you're not dipping back into your mix and continuing to paint with a different water ratio. It's a sure recipe for backruns if you add paint that's a watery mix than what is already down. Not always a bad thing, but it can be if it isn't what you want. If you learn anything from painting watercolors, you will learn, 1) to be patient, and 2) to go with the flow, as it were.

Chris Dinesen Rogers is a watercolor artist, specializing in original landscape paintings.

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