Poor quality brushes will not provide good results when you paint. When I first started, I would go to my arts and crafts store and buy inexpensive brushes. I would come home, rinse them out and then paint only to find that the bristles would fall out and dry in the paint. You do not always see the loose bristles if they land on your canvas and you paint over them. Once the paint is dry, you cannot remove the bristles. It is difficult to remove them from the wet paint on your canvas. With inexpensive brushes, the bristles are not well glued in and will fallout. Also, when you load the paint into the brush, it may not load well.
That being said, you do not have to spend extravagant sums of money on brushes. You just need to find good quality brushes. Better yet get good brushes when they are on sale. I am always on the look out for sales. Most of the larger art suppliers, Jerry's Artarama, Dick Blick's Art, Cheap Joes Art Supplies, have frequent sales on brushes and paints. Subscribe to these stores and you will receive email notices of their sales.
Look for the following in brushes.
Stiff Bristles. The bristles on your brush must be stiff. Stiff bristles are essential to moving the paint around your canvas.
Synthetic Brushes are better than natural bristles for most paintings in my opinion. I primarily use synthetic bristles. Synthetic bristles normally do not come loose. That said I do use hog bristle brushes when doing blended backgrounds, clouds, smoke, haze. Hog bristles provide a nice texture for those applications.
Long vs. Short Handles. The handle of the brush (wooden part you hold), comes in either short or long handles. I use both but prefer short handles but have an equal number of long handle. Long handles allow you to hold the brush further away from the canvas.
Brands. There are many brands of brushes. I use Silver Bristlon, Silver Ruby Satin brushes and Princeton Velvet Touch Brushes primarily. I have other brushes as well but these are my go-to brushes when I buy new brushes. Good brushes are pricey but worth the expense.
Type of Brushes. You need a good angle brush (3/8" if you can only afford one to start with), a bright, a round and a detail brush. You can add brushes in differing sizes as you grow as an artist. The number on brushes has no meanings. It does not go to the size of the brush. Different brush manufactures have different sizes for the numbers. If you are looking for a specific size of brush, measure brush.
Palette Knives. You need a couple of palette knives. These are essential for mixing large amounts of paints. Most artists mix their paints with their brush to avoid over mixing (you sometimes want the colors to streak), You can also paint with palette knives. Personally I do not like to paint with palette knives. A lot of artists use palette knives to paint. I prefer painting with a brush.
Until my next blog, happy painting.
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