Intro | Paper | Colors | Brushes | Summary
As a mean for painting, even a finger would sometime do it!
This said, it's rather convenient to have some good brushes to wet the paper and detail the model.
Brushes are in fact more important for watercolors than for oil or acrylic.
What is a good watercolor brush?
A good watercolor brush should take a good load of water and enable precise outlines. For instance if you paint a sky, you need a brush which can either cover a big surface, but also delineate all details (roof of houses, hills, trees...). The first awaited quality from a watercolor brush is therefore to wet the paper in sufficient manner; Its second quality is to enable final precision. Big but precise is not given to any brush! This is the essence of watercolors.
These two opposite qualities are difficult to meet together. One method is to have two brushes at hand, a big one to wet the paper and a precise one to detail.
Another method is to get equiped with serious brushes. At this game Kolinky sable brushes win all prizes! These quality brushes retain water and color in a unique manner. Furthermore, it is said they will last forever...
My advice
Personnaly I recommand some synthetic brushes for small surfaces and to take outside -they are very affordable and rather good for details. Then you could have some bigger ones in squirrel for wash brush (filbert and flat brush), depending on the surface area to paint. Squirrel brushes enable rather big load of water.
The nec plus ultra for watercolors are Kolinsky sable. Order for Christmas a fine one (diameter 4 mm) and a middle size one (7 mm).
Consider brushes as an investment. Good synthetic brushes may suffice until addict enough to further complete your material!
Are you looking for fine art quality brushes on the web? I recommand you this store: KOLINSKY ART BRUSHES. Why? This US based store sells brushes manufactured in Russia at very low prices -especially for Kolinsky sable quality. After trying many other producers, I think this is the best choice on the market today. Bookmark this page!
