As a general rule Natural hair brushes are more expensive than the Synthetic brushes. They are also usually softer, and the hair will wear down more quickly with these. However, some of the marks you can gain from a natural hair brush just simply can’t be achieved with a synthetic brush.
The Masters Choice brushes are our most popular natural hair brushes.
They are a unique blend of badger hairs (once were the mongoose hair). They are absolutely brilliant for alla prima work, allowing you to work ‘wet on wet’ without pulling the paint away. The hair is responsive and firm, yet gives almost a velvet feel. They are ideal for adding highlights and tonal values. They are resilient, and will wear down well.
Pure Red Sable
The Pure Red Sable are a treat for Oil artists.
They are a brilliant choice if flexibility is needed. You can get precision with the Red Sable, as well as it being a good blocking-in brush, particularly in the larger sizes. If you can afford to try the Sables, I can guarantee you will not be disappointed.
Ebony
The Ebony range is a blend of natural hairs, which closely mimic the Sable, just at a lower cost.
They are a little unsung gem. Literally everyone I speak to who has tried these always asks why they are not more popular. I think the reason being, that we only offer them in a couple of shapes. We may work on other shapes if enough people ask for them. This range is strong enough to work with oil, but has a good softness for blending. I’m sure this range would become a favourite if you were try try them.
Ultimate Bristle
We offer lots of different bristle brushes, however the Ultimate range is our newest addition.
The interlocked bristle brushes offer the artist a traditional brush but with double the interlock. We take two equal amounts of best quality Chinese bristle and set them opposite each other so that the natural curve is facing inwards.The bristle is selected in length and size to enable perfect balance. Although labour intensive, this gives the artist a hard wearing brush which keeps its shape for a very long time. Easy to clean and a good performer. They are currently only available on long handles.
Classic Bristle
The Classic Bristle is slightly different to the Ultimate Bristle.
The Classic is a blend of 90% Bristle, 10% synthetic. This blend allows the bristle to clean easily, and wear down a little better. A long awaited range designed for the traditional oil painter who likes the feel of a bristle brush and the brush mark achieved but doesn’t like the durability and the way bristle can sometimes ‘splay’. This blend of bristle and strong synthetic is ‘interlocked’ allowing the brush to retain it’s original shape for much longer.
Conclusion
I hope this has been insightful to break the ranges down. There are lots more I could have talked about, but I think the above are really key for getting to know the differences. I made up three assortment brush sets sets which give a taster into the different ranges. They are a good set if you want to try the different hairs and fibres but the same shape. You can view these sets on our website.
And finally, there’s cleaning your Oil brushes. For now, all I will say is make sure you do clean them well. There’s a lot of advice out there (and maybe people would like me to write a post about that some time too?). It seems such a shame, and a waste of hard earned money, to have such beautiful brushes and be hindered by the fact they’re not cleaned properly. If you ever need some more help or advice, know that we are a small company and we are real people. I’m always there to try and answer any questions you may have about brushes. I’d like to sign off this post by offering you a free mail order catalogue. In there, all of the brushes have been photographed actual size. That’s really useful since there’s no universal brush size across the different companies, sadly. There’s also heaps of information in there should you wish to know more.