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Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019 Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019
Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019

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Brush Sets

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What are the best paintbrushes for each medium?

With there being so many different brushes, each made to cater for different mediums and their unique properties, it can be confusing for any artist to choose which brush is right for their next piece of art. This journal provides a guide to the best brushes for watercolour, gouache, oil and acrylic painting.

It is important to choose the right paintbrush for your medium as this can have a huge effect on your painting and your budget. Each brush has a different hair stiffness, allowing it to either carry more colour or push the paint around the canvas. It can be important to match the paintbrush hair to the medium you are painting in to ensure that the textures and strokes are what you require. Using the incorrect brushes can cause excessive wear and tear, so choosing the right paintbrush can help save you money.

Bear in mind that some artists prefer using brushes in different ways for different textures and effects, so have a play around and find what works best for you!

What are the best brushes for watercolour and gouache paints?

Although watercolour and gouache paints have distinctly different characteristics, they are both water-based mediums that are diluted down before being applied to the canvas. Generally, these paints are applied either as large background washes or fine details, so it is important that your brush is able to carry large amounts of colour that is able to cover the whole canvas, but also come to a fine and responsive point.

For covering larger areas, softer and more absorbent hair allows you to carry more colour and therefore lay down bigger washes. Sable hair generally holds the most amount of colour so is often the most popular choice, but sable paintbrushes come with a hefty price tag. A good alternative to this is squirrel hair which acts in the same way at a much lower cost. Another alternative is a recent development in synthetic hair that uses a wave synthetic to offer a vegan alternative paintbrush that acts in a similar way to natural hair brushes and is able to carry lots of colour.

For painting finer detail paintings, slightly stiffer synthetic brushes are more suitable as they have a more responsive and finer point. Soft synthetic brushes perform great for fine detail painting. Sable paintbrushes are also suitable for finer details but sometimes lack the responsive point, the best brushes for fine detail watercolour painting for sable lovers are actually sable-synthetic mixes as this offers the best of both worlds: colour holding capacity and sharp and responsive points, such as our Pro Arte Series 100 Connoisseur brushes

What are the best brushes for acrylic paints?

Acrylic is a water based paint that is most commonly used straight out of the tube, but can also be watered down for blending and larger washes. When watered down, their application isn’t too dissimilar to watercolour paint, but usually acrylic paint is a heavier pigment. This means moving acrylic paint on the canvas requires a stiffer paintbrush.

A medium stiffness synthetic brush is the most suitable for acrylic painting as it is able to move the heavier pigment while still being able to maintain a sharp point and carry plenty of colour. Synthetic brushes mimic the feel of stiffer natural brushes, but the hairs are more uniform, catering to the precision of fine detail acrylic painting. Suitable acrylic brushes are Pro Arte Acrylix and Pro Arte Miniature Painter.

What are the best brushes for oil paints?

Oil paint is a thick, slow drying medium usually applied in blocks and blended between colours. Stiffer paintbrush hairs are needed to move heavier oil pigments on the canvas.

Traditionally, hog hairs were the most popular oil brushes as their fibres are strong and durable, making them able to handle thick oil paint without losing their shape. Their texture also allows them to carry more paint and leave visible, textured brush strokes. For example, Pro Arte A hog brushes. However, hog brushes are more prone to solvent damage than synthetic brushes, and generally come with a higher price tag.

With recent innovation, synthetic oil brushes can perform just as well as natural hog brushes. As they’re able to withstand cleaning solvents, synthetic paintbrushes can hold their shape better over time and require less frequent replacement. Check out Pro Arte’s Sterling Acrylix range.

Oil brushes generally feature a longer handle that allows more expressive or gestural brush strokes that give a dynamic and lively feel as well as allowing the artist to stand further back from the painting.

Another popular tool for oil painting are palette knives. These can be used for mixing oil paints as well as other techniques such as impasto- thick layers of oil paint adding heavy textures and dimensions.

What are the best brushes for craft?

Determining the most suitable brushes depends on the specific craft, although there are a few things to bear in mind:

– Synthetic hair is generally more affordable, versatile, suitable to various paints, glues and mediums. They are also easier to clean as they can withstand most solvents and hold their shape well over time- take a look at our brush cleaning guide. As they come to a fine point and are a medium stiffness, this makes them perfect for a range of crafts and fine detailed miniatures, clay painting and jewellery.

– Stencil brushes use short, stiff bristles to help push paints through stencils precisely and prevent any paint from bleeding

– For mixed media painting in general, an all-purpose synthetic brush is best as it has a sharp and responsive point while still being able to carry plenty of colour.

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