The importance of good nature hair brushes

[Anatoli]

Composed an article about paintbrushes, and the various problems you may run into when they start to wear out and some examples of why nature hair brushes are preferred over synthetic brushes complete with pictures of each example.

The article is probably of most use for relatively new or struggling painters as everyone who has painted for a fair number of years have learned all of what I have written the hard way.

http://anatolisgameroom.blogspot.se/2012/12/the-importance-of-good-nature-hair.html

[fastolfrus]

We were talking to Rosemary (who makes Rosemary's brushes) at an art show, and she said one really useful tip for prolonging brush life is to put a little bit of hair conditioner on the brush once a month.

[Mitch K]

I have always used sables and later kolinskys for my miniatures work. But at the end of the day they are consumable items. I have found that painting metal seems to wear brushes at a speed that people who work on watercolour paper (what most sables etc are designed to be used on) wouldn't believe. Used only for watercolours, a good sable will almost last a lifetime. Even on plastic kits with enamels back in the day they would last for years. On minis, they last a few months. And that's with not using them for drybrushing, inking or mixing - I use old brushes or synthetic mixes for these parts of the process.

[fastolfrus]

Rosemary is quite familiar with figure painting, even though she sells most of her brushes to artists.
Anyway, we mainly use sables too, but the hair conditioner works well on them.
Think about it - if you dipped your head in paint you'd need a bit of conditioner to restore it.