Buying watercolor brushes can be a confusing (and expensive) process. What size and shape? Natural hair or synthetic? Which brands of brush are better? I have been painting for many years and have strong preferences for my use but each artist is different and you may end up using a very different selection of brushes. The easiest way to approach brushes is by focusing on their function. What is the brush going to be used for? There are three main functions of brushes in watercolor. Broad washes (Skies, large areas of color) Details (Rigging in boats, eyes, patterns) Textures (Grass, hair, bark) While by no means an exhaustive list of uses I fine that most brushes fall into one of these categories. Natural or Synthetic Watercolor brushes are made from three main materials, Sable, Squirrel, or synthetic fibers mimicking natural hair. Natural hairs hold more liquid, are capable of more subtle and expre
An ongoing exploration of my current paintings and experiments.