Watercolour Brush Trials

It is widely accepted that the best watercolour brushes are made from sable hair. But the prices of pure sable brushes can be eye-wateringly expensive, especially when one goes beyond a size 6 round. Thankfully, the brush manufacturers know that not everyone can -- or wants to -- afford pure sable; so there are alternatives, including brushes made with entirely synthetic hairs, and brushes combining both sable and synthetic hairs.

Persuaded by at least one manufacturer's glossy brochure that synthetic brushes were nearly as good as sable, I devised a simple (non-scientific) test that ought to allow direct comparison of the results: I would charge up each brush in turn with paint, and paint a line across a piece of watercolour paper. By labelling each stripe, I would know which brush had created it, and I could compare the lines/stripes with each other to see how the brushes had performed.  The unscientific parts of the trial would be that I would not measure how much paint each brush took up, nor could I be sure that I was using the same pressure on each brush to paint the line.

Since I already had several different makes of brush in size 6 round, and further examples weren't going to cost me silly money for what might be a one-time use, I settled on size 6 round for this experiment. As the image above shows, I used a Cotman series 111, a Pro Arte Prolene Plus, a Winsor & Newton Sceptre Gold II, a Ken Bromley Artists' Value Profile (identical to a Pro Arte Prolene), a Pro Arte Connoisseur, a Daler-Rowney Aquafine, and a Daler-Rowney System 3. The paper I used was Ken Bromley Practice Paper (apparently made by Fabriano and excellent value for a rag paper). I had an old 21 ml tube of Winsor & Newton Cotman Hooker's Green Dark, so I had no qualms about mixing up a generous quantity of paint for the test.

To perform the test, I first stuck the hairy end of each brush under a running cold water tap to wash out the
substance used to keep the hairs together before sale, and gave them a couple of shakes to remove most of the water. I took a 1/16 sheet (5.5 by 7.5 inches) of paper, and using it in landscape, used an HB pencil to write the name of each brush in the left margin -- spaced about 3/4 inch apart.  Now I could start painting. Using each brush in turn in the order on the paper, I swirled it around the palette of Hooker's Green Dark until it was charged up with paint, and then painted a horizontal stripe on the paper starting at the left hand edge under the writing. I then picked up the next brush in the list and repeated the exercise, until I had run out of brushes to test.

Once the watercolour paper had fully dried, I was able assess the results, and compare the stripes. After some deliberation, I rated the stripes from 1 to 7, with 1 being the best, and 7 the worst. Things I looked for were evenness of colour along the length of the stripe, consistency of stripe (no pale horizontal bands), and colour the full width of the paper. As can be seen from the image above, first place was awarded to the W & N Sceptre Gold II, with the Pro Arte Connoisseur coming second.  An impressive third place finish went to the W & N Cotman, and the Daler-Rowney System 3 brush ranked in fourth place.  Fifth, sixth, and seventh places went to the Pro Arte Prolene Plus, the Daler-Rowney Aquafine, and the Ken Bromley Artists' Value Profile respectively.

A couple of observations.  Most of the pure synthetic brushes displayed the (apparently known) tendency to unload their paint at the beginning of the stroke, resulting in a darkish blob to start and a failure to produce an even stripe on the right side of the paper.  The Cotman brush behaved least like this, which was why it was awarded third place. Secondly, I have seen a recommendation somewhere on the Internet that a synthetic brush size should be two sizes bigger than its sable equivalent, to compensate for the difference in performance. As can be seen in the image of the brushes, the two Daler-Rowney brushes on the right have longer hairs, and are indeed closer in size to other manufacturers' No. 8 rounds. Should I adjust the scoring to account for this? Oh well, I did say this wasn't scientific!

For actual painting, I alternate between Sceptre Gold II and Prolene Plus, as these are the brushes I have most examples of at present.  I find the Sceptre Gold II brushes better for watercolour glazing techniques.

The Full Monty?

No, only a partial! This line-up of shady characters comes from the extensive range of Monty's Models figures, now sold by Dart Castings. All are cast in white metal in a scale of 4 millimetres to 1 foot (1:76.2 scale), and are supplied unpainted.

Each figure is accurately and cleanly cast with little sign of flash, but each will usually show some mould lines which should be carefully removed before painting. Many of the figures come supplied with a cast-on spigot on the sole of one foot to aid in fixing them in place once painted.

The sculpting is generally of a high standard, some of it being exquisite. It is hard to believe that these figures are no more than 24 millimetres high, and one could be mistaken for thinking that they are 7 mm/1 foot (1:43) scale.

I painted them using acrylic paints. After initial preparation, they were spray-painted with matt black car acrylic paint from an aerosol can to form the undercoat/shadow layer. Allowing 24 hours for the black to dry, medium grey and light grey artists' tube acrylic paint (mixed from Daler-Rowney System 3) was dry-brushed over the black base to form mid-tones and high-lights. The resulting monochrome figures (grisaille) were then coloured using glazes made from Winsor & Newton Galeria tube acrylic paints -- mainly selecting those paints that are classified as either transparent or semi-transparent. (The essential ingredient in the glazes is an 8:1 water to W & N Galeria Matt Medium solution to dilute the paint, rather than plain water.) Dark colours might only need one or two glaze layers, but light colours might need four or more. The important thing is to let the underpainting show through the glazes. All the brush painting was done with Pro Arte Acrylix brushes.

The Galeria paint and matt medium is not actually dead flat, but usually dries with a satin sheen. To cure this, I used an inexpensive Reeves Series R2 No 1 sable brush to apply well-shaken Daler-Rowney Matt Soluble Varnish to garments, although footwear and greasetop hats can be left as they are. This produces a superb matt finish where it is needed, and allows the underpainting to be seen.

My initial inspiration came from Brian Fayle's site, where I found his comments on shadows especially thought-provoking. The black undercoat and the dry-brushing is very much influenced by Brian's methods, as is the use of artists' acrylic paint in tubes. I like to think that this painting technique falls somewhere between the cartoon-like finish resulting from using a single, relatively thick and opaque coat of modellers' paint; and the incredible models produced by expert miniature figure painters with superb eyesight and rock steady hands!  Each figure took around two to three hours of painting to complete. The method is ideal for batch painting of half a dozen figures or more at one time, given the rapid drying time of acrylic paint. At a viewing distance of about a foot (30 cm), they seem convincing enough for model diorama use.

In praise of Cotman watercolours

Winsor and Newton's Cotman range of watercolour paints has been available for several decades, and complements the well-regarded Artists' watercolour paints from the same manufacturer.  In the UK, Cotman is around a third of the price of the artists' range. One might think that Cotman paints are strictly student-grade, and unsuitable for "serious" painting -- but  some superb work can be found on the Internet, produced using Cotman paints. Indeed, W & N used to claim that these paints are made to the same standards as the artists' range, but use less expensive pigments.

The range comprises 40 colours, of which 16 (40 percent) are single pigment, 20 (50 percent) are two-pigment, and four (ten percent) are three-pigment paints. The paints are currently available as half-pans, 8 ml tubes and 21 ml tubes.

It is a little puzzling why some Internet commentators get a bit "funny" about Cotman paints. Perhaps because these paints give some ranges of artists' watercolours a good run for their money? One person even went as far as dumping their half-pans into a container of water after trying them out! (If you want to keep the plastic half-pans, the paint tablets drop out with very little effort in my experience.) I have several tubes of W & N Artists' watercolours, and I confess that I struggle to see how they are dramatically better than Cotman -- i.e., three times better on price -- but this may be down to my lack of practice?

I wonder whether the clue is in the brand name? John Sell Cotman was a nineteenth century English painter, so perhaps there is a suggestion that Cotman watercolours are best used for landscapes in cooler climates? Therefore, if you want strong, vibrant colours, then Cotman paints are not for you...

Should you be thinking about dipping your toe into the world of watercolour and your budget is constrained -- and you live in the UK -- then Cotman paints are worth considering. They are good value for money, and can be found in most high streets (all but the smallest outlets of WH Smiths, for example). The Cotman Sketcher's Pocket Box (shown on the middle right in the photograph above) makes a great starter set for a modest outlay: more of which anon...

(Disclaimer: I am in no way connected with Winsor and Newton, except as a satisfied customer!)

Starting in watercolours

I am not sure how I became interested in watercolour painting -- surely not because of the cheap paint sets in flat metal boxes that I remember as a child, which ran out of at least one useful colour in next to no time?  Nor can I attribute it to art classes in school: there seemed to be an assumption in the mid-1970s that we knew how to paint (on thin paper not far removed from newsprint, using bristle brushes having seen better days and poster paint that we mixed ourselves from powder).  Perhaps the purchase of a book on the subject in the late 1980s might have been the catalyst?  Nevertheless, it would take me at least one false start and a couple of well-intentioned might-have-beens before I actually made the effort to put brush to paper -- some 25 years later!

I hasten to add that I don't feel I have any natural talent for this sort of thing.  I have always considered my ``artistic abilities'' to be low to average, but for some reason I have a fascination with paints and painting.  My hope is that one day I shall be competent enough to produce something that I won't be embarrassed to hang in the downstairs loo!  In the meantime, I still have much to learn, and plenty of practice beckons...