Quill brushes
Today I am trying the big brushes. I received the Raphaël as a Christmas gift. The two brushes by Silver Brush Limited I got for my birthday after seeing a fellow artist using the 240 Quill on Instagram. I knew I just had to have one. While shopping for that brush I found the white Goat Hair Quill brush and had to get that one too. The largest size it came in was the 180 but they were out of stock so opted for the 160. The size 3 quill from Rosemary and Company brushes I had purchased a while back but hadn’t used yet. Golden Taklon brushes are my favorite brushes for acrylic painting, however I tend to prefer synthetic squirrel brushes for watercolor. I will do some more testing of the Silver 260. I love how big petals I can create with these brushes. I also want to compare them to my Size 8 Quill brush by Princeton Neptune. It is also synthetic squirrel. It makes lovely flowers. What I have learned is that size is not universal in regards to brushes. For example as you can see in the picture the Size 3 Rosemary and Company Quill brush is just a bit larger than the size 4 Raphaël Quill brush. I first realized this with my #2 round brushes. I have size 2 round brushes by 4 different manufacturers and they are all different in size.
sefoster
Author, Artist, Swim Instructor and 10+ year survivor of uterine cancer. Shannon has love of all things purple and teal, most greens, paisley and elephants.
2 Comments
donnawiik
If one wanted to just play around a little bit, what would you start with. I would hate to find out it’s not for me after I spent a lot of money. I really like your watercolor flowers.
sefoster
Personally I like tube colors versus prepoured pans. Some of my favorites are the Grumbacher Academy. They are a very good student grade paint. They retail for about $4/tube at Hobby Lobby. You will need a palette to put them in for storage but they last a long time so in the long run tube paint is more economical. A nice starter set of prepoured pans is either the Koi travel set or the Windsor and Newton Cotman student paint set. Both are also available at Hobby Lobby and you could use your 40% coupon on them. I really like the 6×6 masters touch watercolor paper for practice. I use either Strathmor or Canson 140lb paper for finished pieces.