As with many of our brushes at Rosemary & Co, we rely on the world’s top artists to tell us what they need and work hard to make the specific brush for them. At the beginning of 2015, Australian artist, Liz Steel contacted us and asked if we could make a brush shorter than the sword liner (a dagger brush), but in the larger sizes, and suitable for travelling. Liz describes why she uses a dagger, “mainly to get more expressive strokes – thin strokes like a rigger, big wider strokes like a flat and lots of other expressive calligraphic marks.

A lot of artists use a dagger with precision, however I have not tried to master it in this way as my natural flow is to work fast and loose. I allow my dagger to twist and do crazy things on me and as a result sometimes get a few strange marks. There is no doubt that using a dagger has taught me a lot about being deliberate with my brushstrokes and this has paid off when I use a round brush”. Liz is part of an extensive network of urban sketchers, and the need for the dagger brush in larger sizes became more apparent when we were contacted by several other top artists desperate to try this new innovation.

It was only last week that a friend of Liz’s, Suhita Shirodkar wrote to me, “while I love having an assortment of brushes to play with, I find that I tend to gravitate towards a brush or two that I use almost exclusively when I paint. Right now the brush that works magically across all my work, from smaller urban sketches created on location to larger studio figure studies is the Rosemary Series 772.

I love the versatility of this brush: just a twist of the hand, and I can fine-line and draw with it, and then I can move back to the wide, flat side for bold, painterly brushstrokes: it is a lot like using a sword brush, but with much more control. And unlike a regular flat brush (which can also give you thick and thin strokes), the angled dagger shape of the brush means that the transition between thick and thin strokes itself holds so many varied and subtle stroke widths you can produce”.

The smaller ¼” size is also available as a travel/reversible brush.

For more information please click here.

Images courtesy of Liz Steel & Marc Taro Holmes: www.lizsteel.com