Today you can buy brushes in every art or good stationery store , but how do you know which form and design to give preference to? After all, only the right tool guarantees the painter pleasure from the artistic process and a high-quality result.
Before buying brushes, you should already have an idea of the expected effect, and of the materials and methods with which you plan to work:
Surface – wood, canvas, cardboard, glass, paper, etc.
Paints – watercolors, gouache, oil, etc.
Technique – glazing, avant-garde, corpus or mixed
Basic types of brushes
Round brushes are used for traditional pasta painting. Depending on the pressure, the brush changes the thickness of the line, which is very convenient when painting and detailing drawings. Large, round brushes are good for large areas.
The main types of art brushes
Oval brushes combine the properties of flat and round brushes. By adjusting the angle and degree of pressure, you can achieve different thickness of the stroke and interesting painterly effects.
Contour brushes are a type of flat brushes that have a shortened bun of hair. It is the short length that gives the villi additional firmness and elasticity, which helps to control the expressiveness of the contour. It is convenient to use such a brush to detail the drawing, give it liveliness and realism.
Careful drawing of details or other art material with a thin brush makes the picture more realistic
The long and thick bristles of flat brushes make it possible to pick up a lot of paint. The pen-battery- wide base is ideal for large expressive strokes, background fills, primers and varnishes. Such universal brushes have no equal not only in painting, but also in arts and crafts.
The flutes brushes are wide and flat, they are convenient for processing large-scale surfaces with sweeping textured strokes, creating and filling the background.
Retouched or branch brushes look like flat ones, only the bristles of their hair bundle are cut at an angle. This allows the brush to leave a clear and accurate mark on the surface, the width of which changes depending on how much force is applied to the tool.
Squirrel brushes
Font and line brushes have a long pile, gathered in a rounded bunch, which can absorb quite a lot of liquid or diluted paint. Thanks to him, the lines are thin and continuous. This type of brush is most often used to write on the surface.
The hair bundle of a fan brush resembles a spread fan. It is convenient to use it to create a gradient and glaze, fill a small background.
A feature of the double stroke brushes is the specific conical trimming of the edge of its long pile, which gives a thin expressive line when drawing.
Hair natural brushes
Let’s take a look at the most popular natural bristle brushes.
Squirrel brushes are very soft, which makes the process of painting with acrylic, tempera and gouache paints on porcelain or faience as comfortable as possible. However, they require an extremely careful attitude towards themselves, since the slightest negligence leads to damage to delicate hairs and to the incompetence of the hand.
Weasel speakers
The hair of the brushes from the kolinka , a small animal of the weasel family, has a medium degree of stiffness, therefore it is more wear-resistant.
The sable brush is very durable and suitable for working with all types of paints. The lines are very thin – this is an irreplaceable quality when processing small parts.
Pork bristles are very tough, so brushes are made of them for painting on canvas; they are not suitable for thinner and more graceful paintings.
Brush care
For a brush to serve for a long time, follow these recommendations:
Store brushes in a dry, ventilated area
Use in your work brushes that are optimally adapted to the chosen technique, paint and surface. What matters is the size of the brush, the quality and shape of its hair bun, and the type of tip.
Do not break the brush hair while working, cleaning or storing the tool.
Clean the paint brushes in time, without letting it dry out. Use only solvents recommended by the paint manufacturer. Do not leave brushes in water for long.
Gently draw paint away from the tip.
Store dry and clean tools horizontally to eliminate pressure on hair.