For a very long time I’ve been fond of Winsor & Newton Series 7 brushes. They were first recommended to me in the 1980s and I’ve been using them ever since. There is something really wonderful about how they feel and work when laying down paint with them. The thing is, they are expensive. Very expensive. Now they are becoming more so when you can find them at all due to a US ban on the hairs used to create them. So what are the alternatives and are they also expensive?
In the past when I’ve looked for alternatives to my favorite WN7 brushes I’ve looked for brushes that purport to be the same as those brushes. Those that come closest to that ideal are every bit as expensive and since they use the same Kolinsky Sable hairs will be suffering from the same issues of availability. I’ve never found a natural hair brush that I’ve liked as much as the kolinsky sable ones. They don’t seem to last as long, don’t keep their points as well, and they never have the right snap to them. Also, they tend to almost as expensive for ones that are worth using at all.
When I first started painting I liked Winsor and Newton’s University series brushes. These are synthetic hair brushes (white!) that, when brand new, feel just about perfect to me. They keep a sharp point, they have a good snap and they feel just right when using them. They are also 1/2 to 1/3 the price of their more expensive cousins. Downside? No matter what you do their tips curl over time limiting their usefulness for things like eyes. So I would find myself replacing the brushes with some regularity. Usually trying to keep one as my detail brush and using the curled brushes as my workhorse brushes. The thing was when I discovered the WN7 brushes I realized that I didn’t need to replace them very often so while there was a higher up-front cost per brush they were cheaper over the long-term.
About two years ago I decided to experiment with some very cheap brushes. My thinking was that these were cheap enough that I could use them as “disposable” brushes for applying glue or other times I didn’t want to use a better brush. I got the “large” #1 size. The brushes were long and narrow. Almost like a liner. They seemed fine for the purposes I bought them for. Still, I decided to see what else I could use them for. They’re okay for base coating but they feel a little awkward. I think this is mainly due to the fact that I’ve been using the same brushes for so many years and these are definitely different. They work fine though. I wasn’t surprised to see that my first one curled at the tip after a handful of uses but I wasn’t ever going to use these brushes for that kind of detail so it wasn’t really an issue (quick side note: those curled tips can sometimes be useful in getting paint into hard to reach areas). What did surprise me is that I’ve continued to use these brushes and each one lasts a lot longer than I expected and now almost two years later I still have about half of the original brushes that I started with. For brushes that cost me about 40 cents each I don’t know if I could be happier with them. I was so happy with them that I created a short video about them.
With that experiment under my belt I decided to experiment again with smaller brushes that I might be able to paint eyes with. So I picked these up. Honestly, I thought I was probably throwing my money away but since it wasn’t a lot of money I was fine with it for purposes of the experiment. Once I received them I opened my first one and noticed that it had a very pronounced guide hair (that is the hair in the center of the bristles). Looking at some of the others I could see that there was some variation to the size of that hair which meant that the quality control on the brushes wasn’t great. In any case, the issue is easily dealt with by carefully trimming it down.
In use - it didn’t feel great. The bristles are a bit stiff. They weren’t great for spreading paint - but that’s not really why I bought them. The big test was painting eyes and the results were very good. Surprisingly so. Here’s a little secret: My favorite brushes haven’t ever felt great for painting eyes. The tip is so razor sharp that I feel like I need a microscope to hit my target. It’s why I liked to use pens to dot my eyes when possible. Well, these new brushes solved that problem for me. Painting the whites? Simple. Dotting the eyes? As easy as using the pens. What’s really surprising is that I’ve now used that brush over a number of minis and it hasn’t curled at all so the brush is still as useful as when I started using it. Amazing! If only half of the brushes perform as well as my first one I’ll be incredibly pleased with the results of this experiment.
As I write this post I have a third set of experimental bulk brushes on the way. I think I’m becoming addicted to them now. I’ve always loved trying out new brands of paint but never brushes. That seems to have changed now. Let me be clear, though. These are not great brushes. The handles are made of cheap wood, are sometimes a little bent and the ferrule can sometimes pop off of the handle if given the right amount of encouragement (some don’t need much encouragement). At the end of the day though the important thing I ask myself is “did they get the job done” and the answer has been “yes!” and they’ve done it on the cheap. I still keep my good brushes around but now I can save them for when I really feel like I NEED them and that means that each one will be around for a long time since I will be giving all of the grunt work (and some of the detail work) to the cheap brushes.