Usually just a few good brushes will do, the choice is split into Synthetic or Natural hair, personally I prefer the synthetic, they are cheaper, easier to replace and work well for watercolours. I find the synthetic holds its shape well, and the hairs are slightly firmer than the natural hair brushes. Natural hair brushes hold larger amounts of water and are great for mop brushes. Natural hair brushes are more expensive,
BRUSHES
ROUND
This brush is very versatile, comes in a good range of sizes and is the one most often used, the round refers to the round profile at the tip of the ferrule, the metal bit before the hairs…and they taper to a fine tip, ideal for detail. by applying pressure as you paint you can spread the brush hairs to widen the stroke. (You can create fine detail with any size brush if you have a nice fine point, so you don’t have to us the smallest brush available to create small fine detail.)
Mop brushes or Quills
Great for painting very large areas or wetting areas for wet-on-wet applications.
Quills have extra large, round body of hair that tapers to a fine point. Mops have densely packed hairs in a rounded shape.
Riggers or Liner brushes
Riggers are similar to rounds but have much longer hair. They’re perfect for painting long, fine lines. You need more fluid to create a longer stroke.
Flat/Chisel or Filbert
Flat brushes can be useful for covering large areas or for creating angular strokes. Use the large flat side of the brush for the best coverage, or twist to use the edge of the brush for thinner lines.
Filberts have a similar profile to flat brushes. However – instead of having quite sharp, defined edges at the tip – they are gently rounded. Their oval shape creates a round stroke useful for painting petals and blending.
Fan
Fan brushes have tips where the fibres fan out into a canopy formation. They’re great for painting special effects, (Foliage or grass) creating texture.
PAINTS
These come in either tubes or pans, student grade or Artist grade. Tubes are good for larger areas; pans are good for travel or smaller areas.
Student grades are cheaper, have a smaller range of colours and contain cheaper pigments or artificial pigments rather than the cadmiums and cobalt, found in artist grade. There is a huge difference in price, but I find the Windsor and Newton Cotman range has good colour vibrancy and a good range of colours. The word HUE after a colour means it’s a cheaper pigment used to create the same colour.
Artist grade is more expensive, has a wider choice of colours and uses real pigments, they come in “series”, ranging from 1 to 4 or 5, 1 being the cheapest, 4 or 5 the dearest purely because of the pigments and minerals used, e.g. Cadmium and Cobalt. These paints tend to go further, are more vibrant, and are smoother in texture.
Opacity
Each colour has a level of transparency, affecting how it will look with other colours, for example yellow is very transparent, layered over or under red will make that colour more Orange. Some tubes in both watercolour and acrylic paint will have symbols on the tubes to depict the transparency.
- An empty square or circle = transparent
- A Half-filled circle or square = semi-transparent
- A solid circle or square = opaque.
Permanence rating and Lightfastness
Referring to the amount of fade over time in museum conditions.
- AA = extremely permanent
- A = permanent
- B = moderately durable
Lightfastness is usually I or II (I is the lowest) and refers again to the amount of fade over 100years in museum conditions, both numbers are considered good for Artists.
