How to Choose the Best Art Brush

An art brush can be expensive, but they are all essential art materials.  Art brushes come in many different sizes and shapes.  With time and some experimentation, you’ll discover the type of art brush you like to use.  You’ll need one set of brushes for working with watercolors and a different set for painting with oil paint or acrylics.

Types of Paint Brushes
The most common brush shapes are

Paint brushes are made from stiff or soft hairs.  Soft brushes form a sharp point, allowing for detailed work. They also work well with thin paint, which spreads easily. Stiff brushes are ideal for painting with thick paint.  They also create the “painterly” effect by leaving brush marks in the paint.

You want to look for brushes that
– have elasticity;  a good brush springs back to its original shape after each art brush stroke.
– can control the paint flow; a good brush distributes the paint predictably
– form a sharp point; an essential characteristic of a good round brush

Next you’ll need to decide
between a natural hair or synthetic hair brush.  Brushes have either a short standard length handle or a long handle.  Oil painters generally prefer long handled brushes.  You’ll discover what works best for you.

Kolinsky Red Sable Hair Brushes – This is one of the finest art brushes.  The hair is obtained from the tail of the kolinsky, a species of weasel (rather than an actual sable) found in Siberia. It is pale red in color with darker tips. The elastic soft hair forms beautifully shaped, long pointed tips and allows for maximum control of the paint flow. While it is made into brushes for all mediums, it is mainly used with watercolor.

Pure Red Sable-  This art painting brush, red in color, is made from the hair of the red sable and has been a soft brush of choice to artists for many years. It’s sometimes mixed or passed off as Kolinsky. There are many different grades of Red Sable, depending on the region of the world from which the animal comes.  Mainly used for watercolor, it can be used with acrylic and oil paints but it must be cleaned well and often.

Usually the surfaces oil and acrylic painters use are rougher than paper.   That rough surface wears down the soft Red Sable and Kolinsky brushes more quickly than painting on paper.  Painters who work with glazes, will often use a sable brush for their final layers of paint.

Bristle – This brush, a favorite of oil and acrylic painters,  is made from the strong, coarse, hair of a pig. As these bristles have natural split-ends, they can hold more paint than other art paint brushes. It holds up well with heavy mediums such as oils and acrylics and with the rough surfaces used by oil and acrylic painters.

Many cheaper bristle brushes work well but don’t last as long as the more expensive ones.

Squirrel -This hair is very absorbent and will carry a lot of paint.  It’s an excellent choice for painting on china and signs, as the very fine pointed hairs leave a smooth, streak-free stroke. They can be used with all mediums.

Ox - This hair can easily be dyed different colors and is very strong, but it lacks the fine tips of Red Sable or Squirrel. It is ideal hair for mops and mixing with other hair.

Goat – This white hair is very soft and fragile. It’s used to blend or soften the appearance of your project.

Camel –  So as not to waste any hair in the brush-making process, leftover hair of different types are mixed together to make camel hair brushes.  There isn’t actually any camel hair in these brushes. These brushes are less expensive, so they can be a good choice for beginning students of painting.

Synthetic – This is generally referred to as Taklon.  Usually theses hairs are dyed gold but they can be found in other colors.  Taklon comes in different grades of quality and diameters.

If you want to work with watercolors, read my explanation of the different types of watercolor paper before you buy.