Pro Arte Sablene brushes

I suspect that if I counted up my paint brush collection I would find that I had more assorted Pro Arte brand brushes than any others. I have been using them ever since a friend of mine brought them to my attention around 20 years ago; and Acrylix, Connoisseur, and Prolene Plus brushes all now see regular use.

Within the last couple of years, I noticed that Ken Bromley Art Supplies has been selling a Pro Arte brush called Sablene. Tantalisingly, little additional information seems to be available about it, and few people seem to have tried one and posted their reactions. I wondered whether Sablene might be the response to the Escoda Versatil and other synthetic brushes that claim to give a more sable-like experience when painting?

What is even more mysterious is that as of late July 2020, Pro Arte’s own Website makes no mention of Sablene whatsoever! (Or of Sablesque, which appeared about the same time as Sablene.) Odd.

Ken Bromley's only supplies these brushes in wallets containing four or five different brushes: you cannot (yet?) buy brushes individually. Also, there are some wallets described as Scholar, which are a little cheaper but the brushes have silver-coloured ferrules rather than gold-coloured. (Guess which sort I bought?...) Yes, I chose the Scholar 38WA pack containing Nos. 2, 4, 6, 8 round, and a 3/8 inch flat. I hoped that the cost would be saved in the handles and the hairs would be the same quality as in the more expensive wallets...

The brushes arrived in the same order as the Van Gogh paints I mentioned previously. To start with, I thought I would add to the test of brushes I made in February 2015 to get some idea of performance.  As I said back then, this is totally unscientific, and is simply a crude way of seeing how much paint a brush will hold and how well it releases it onto the paper.