Today I thought I would go over some of the brushes I use on my framed oil paintings and why. Nine times out of ten I'm using a bristle brush of some sort for most of any given painting. I need the firmness to paint well with color as it comes out of the tube. I really only thin my paint when I'm doing detail work so bristle is ideal for moving oil paint around. I use rounds, flats, and my favorite, the filbert which can be thought of as a flat with a half circle, rounded edge. A lot of my leave indications in my landscape work are done with bristle filberts of different sizes. I like to have at least two of each size brush so I can have a dark and a light color going without having to clean the brush each time.

  After the painting is "blocked in", I start working in any detail work. Depending on what I'm doing the painting may be either dry or not. Regardless, I like to use various sable hair brushes for these tasks. I use two different size "script liners" as they are known to do long thin lines, and an assortment of very small rounds, flats, and "chisel" point brushes for the rest. Sable is a very soft hair, just the opposite of bristle and are necessary for all those small little areas of a painting where detail is called for. I also have some large sable flat brushes that I mostly use for very soft blending and "glazing" color over something that is dry. I plan on doing a series of framed oil paintings in the future that feature "glazed" color like the old masters.

  The other types of brushes that I use are for other applications such as house painting. These large brushes are great to lay in color on my largest framed oil paintings. And of course, I have some of those little handy custom/worn out brushes that all artists have to produce various effects. If you have any questions about brushes or would like to share with others the brushes you like to use for your artwork, please leave a post and let me know. Thats all for now so take care and I'll see you on Friday!