Speaking of Weasel Tails...

I ordered my first set of Winsor & Newton Series 7 kolinski sable brushes last week and they arrived yesterday. I've always wondered if they were for me and decided to take the plunge. I'll say up front, I'm very impressed, impressed enough to name my new blog after them :-)



Last week, Dick Blick had a ridiculous sale and the brushes were something like 60% off. Even though I've been painting for decades I've avoided these brushes in the past for two reasons:

1. I'm hard on brushes, less so now than I used to be but it seems like I go through them pretty fast. They are expensive and I'd hate to spend a lot of money just to ruin them.
2. I wondered if they really make that much of a difference? If so, would they be wasted on me at my skill level?

But these days I'm feeling experimental and hey, 60% off? What the heck? So I ordered two each #00 and #2 brushes.

Bringeth me the holy paint
brushes of Antioch

Anyway, I got home last night and found a huge box on the kitchen table. Blick apparently decided that such valuable implements of artistry needed to float in a giant box that also handily fit one of their print catalogs. I opened it up to find six cubic yards of puffy plastic air pockets, the aforementioned catalog and four plastic cylinders each cradling a brush. Each brush was capped by a smaller plastic tube protecting its little Siberian weasel fur tip.

What's so special about kolinski sable brushes? Well, if you already use them, stop reading now, you already know. If, like me, you haven't used them before, you may have heard a lot of people extolling their virtues. Essentially, I'm told the advantage is the natural fur holds a nice pointed tip, making it easier to paint fine details and paint flows very smoothly from brush.

So, I broke one of the 00s out of it's spiffy little plastic tube and immediately started painting with it. The first thing I noticed is the handles on the Winsor & Newton brushes are quite nice. They're long with a slight bulge where you want to hold the brush. Quite comfortable. The brush itself on the 00 is a tiny thing but it really does come to a razor point. I painted a few highlights on a miniature I was working on and the first thing I noticed was paint really does flow nicely from the brush. When painting fine lines with the Taklon brushes I normally use I usually have to make a couple passes to highlight an edge or draw a line. With the sable I was able to just draw the brush along and paint flowed off, almost like I was painting with a pen. When I needed to clean the paint off for another color, I found the brush cleaned off easily and it snapped back into its natural shape readily.

Need steadier hands now

So next, feeling brave, I decided my dude needed some fine lines drawn along his tabard for added interest. I plopped some red paint on my wet palette, thinned it down a little and proceeded to draw lines. WOW! The improved flow compared to the synthetic brushes I'm used to really does make a huge difference. I was able to paint nice straight, uniform lines, and the only mistake I had was when my hand shook.

Alright so that was one quick experiment with one brush and I haven't even tried the #2 yet. But I'm enthused and I plan to put these through their paces for future posts. I'm interested to find out how robust they are (see issue 1 above), which is one reason I bought two of each. I'm going to baby one set and use them for precision work like eyes and freehand while the other set I'm going treat a little more workman like. If I destroy the second set through my abuses, I'll still have a pair for the fine work.

There's a lot more to know about these brushes than I've touched on here. Artist Jen Haley explains these tools a whole lot better than I can and goes on to talk about proper care and feeding. Do check out her entire site; she's an amazing artist.