Brushes Tips For Watercolor Painting

What are the proper Brushes For Watercolor Painting

This can be confusing for the beginning water colorist.

Many people are natural collectors and seem to accumulate every gadget that comes along. If your pocketbook can afford it,nothing wrong with this.

Always experimenting and have acquired many materials for the purposes, however, We will only discuss the materials that are essential for the beginner to have.

From Left To Right : 2-inch sky-flow brush, 1.5-inch Flat, 1-inch Flat, 3/4-inch Flat, No.12 Round, No. 8 Round, No. 4 Round, Rigger and the last two are scrubbers.

BRUSHES

If we shold to choose which of my materials should be of the finest quality, it would be this brushes. The following is information on a selection of brushes with a wide range of costs.

FLATS

There are many brushes on the market that are suitable for painting in watercolor and just as many prices. You can spend over $100 for a no. 8 round Kolinsky sable in one brand, or as little as $23 in another brand. Needless to say, the more expensive brushes are generally better. But there are exceptions, and some of the less expensive brushes work quite nicely.

There are also brushes made of natural hair such as fox or squirrel. These brushes are less expensive with a no. 8 running around $7.

Recommended : purchasing the very best brushes you can afford.

With proper care, the better the brush, the longer the life of the brush. Never use your sable brushes in acrylics or oils since this will quickly ruin them.

If you are going to paint in a medium other than watercolor, use synthetic fiber brushes made for that purpose.

Use many synthetic brushes, generally flats. I use a 2-inch skyflow brush and other flats ranging from 1/4-inch to 1 1/2-inch, some synthetic and some natural hair.

A synthetic flat will do the job. However, if you can afford it, a

flat with some natural hair works better and a sable works best.

ROUNDS

Round brushes range from a no. 4 to a no. 12,Sable brushes hold more liquid than synthetic brushes, and they hold the liquid better. Synthetic rounds have a tendency to drip on the way to the paper, releasing the liquid quickly and often making a puddle with the first stroke.

There are some newer synthetic brushes that are said to come close to natural hair brushes in performance.

SPECIALTY BRUSHES

Use other specialty brushes such as mop brushes, riggers and script liners. A no. 4 sable rigger will cost about twice as much as a synthetic. But a rigger is the one brush that should be sable.

You don't want to run out of pigment on a long fine line as this error will be obvious in your finished painting.

There are many specialty brushes on the market, but for figures and portraiture I believe those illustrated here will do nicely.