Search the Community

My wife got me a nice set of brushes for Christmas. Aside from two she got me a few years ago, I have never had nice brushes before. I have never properly learned how to care for brushes, but would like to do that now. What resources are out there? What should I buy?

So my old Winsor & Newton series 7 size 1 finally died. Last year (or possibly longer ago) there was some concern about US Fish and Wildlife importing regulations making kolinsky sable paint brushes much harder to find in the US. As a result, I bought some brands I hadn't tried to test out should trusty old Winsor and Newtons become unavailable. I've had good experience with Old Holland paints, so I decided to try their brushes too. Brush size has no standardization or consistency from brand to brand. Each picture below shows a new Old Holland Series 7001 Kolinsky Size 4 brush (above) and a new Winsor and Newton Series 7 Size 1 brush (below), and as you can see they are pretty much the same size. Before washing (as came from store): Washed, with centimeter scale: The Old Holland brush has a much longer handle and a thicker grip near the business end: Details of markings: I haven't tested them in painting yet, but while washing them they seemed to have about the same amount of "snap".

So just yesterday, after ordering them Tuesday night from England, received this package of Rosemary & Co. brushes. They came very nicely packed together as seen, and in a cardboard support wrapped by rubber bands. Very nicely arrived, and considering it took from Tuesday to Friday to get from the UK to Omaha, Nebraska I was extremely impressed. Apparently there were no issues getting the brushes through customs. These brushes are their series 33, Kolinsky sable brushes, hopefully in every way just as good as the Winsor & Newtons I've been using now for a few years. I haven't had a chance to yet actually use them, but as I do, I'll report my impressions sometime in the near future.