Watercolor Painting - Guide to Buying Watercolor Brushes

If you are a complete beginner as a Watercolor hobbyist, choosing the right Watercolor brushes from the huge ranges of Artist’s products can often lead to a total confusion. However with the right tips you will have no trouble choosing the right paint brushes that will suit your painting needs. Here are some helpful tips:

Choose brushes that are specially made for Watercolor Painting.

Using brushes that are strictly made for other media such as oil and Acrylic may just damage your Watercolor paper or painting surface.

Familiarize yourself with the different types of brush hairs available.

The hair of paintbrush is made of different materials ranging from natural hairs to synthetic fibers. Natural hairs made of animal hairs (usually sable, squirrel, camel, ox, pony and goat) holds a good amount of paint and produce soft and prolonged strokes of color which is ideal for watercolor painting. Synthetic fibers on the other hand, mimic the qualities of natural hairs and are much cheaper when compared to natural hairs which made them a great deal for beginners.

Ensure that you choose only those brushes that are guaranteed to retain their hairs.

Avoid buying poor quality brushes because they easily worn out and give bad results in the long run which often cause frustrations and disappointment to aspiring painters.

Know the different types and sizes of paint brush available in the market.

The most common shapes of brushes to be used in Watercolor Painting and other water media are flats, rounds and filberts.

- Flats have long bristles with square tips, ideal for covering broad areas of the painting.

- Rounds have long bristles with rounded and pointed tips; they’re great for drawing and adding details to a painting.

- Filbert brushes have slightly rounded tips(shape like an almond), they are highly effective for modeling shapes and creating tapered brush strokes.

Watercolor brushes also come in different sizes. Most manufacturers produce various sizes; from 00 to 12, with 12 being the largest and 00 being the smallest (this may differ from brand to brand). It is important to consider the sizes of your brushes when you buy them, the size you choose will be governed by your style and scale of painting.

Finally my word of advice would be to buy the best brushes you can afford, it may not be the materials themselves that make a painting a work of art, but using good quality brushes does help improve your work. So happy painting!