Despite their difference in size, all of the brushes shown left are size 3's.  For some strange reason, there is absolutely no standard when it comes to sizing brushes.  The size number put on a brush doesn't correspond to anything scientific; it's basically just an arbitrary number.  So, a size 3 for one brand will almost certainly be different from a size 3 for another.  This is an annoyance that artists have to endure when they decide to shop around for brushes, particularly when they have to rely on mail-order to buy more exotic brands.  The brushes shown here don't even represent the far extremes of the spectrum.  For example, the Richeson 6228 size 3 is about half the size of the brushes shown here.  Even sizing standards within one company aren't always consistant.  The Winsor & Newton Series 7 size 3 is the same size as a Winsor & Newton Cirrus 110 size 4.  Don't ask me why.  I have no idea.

After an artist becomes more familiar with how a brush behaves, he or she will begin to appreciate just how many factors go into making a quality brush.  Materials.  Craftsmanship.  Design.  Bristle quality. 

Yeah, I know "bristle quality" seems like it should be included with "materials", but it's important enough to warrent it's own category.

Let's look at these one by one, shall we?  :-)

When I talk about materials, I'm basically talking about everything but the bristles of a brush.  At first, this may seem silly, since the bristles are the business end of the brush, and everything else is just stuff, right?  Wrong.  Everything must work in unison to make a quality brush. 

Of the brushes examined here, all but one of them have excellent, substantial handles with thick, heavy lacquer.  The black sheep:  Rekab.  Not only is the Rekab handle way too skinny to provide a good grip, it's cheap, lightweight wood and thin lacquer make for a feather-light handle that doesn't balance the brush very well.

All of the brushes used in this demonstration have well-formed, well-fitted ferrules.  Many cheaper brushes will have crooked, lightly-crimped ferrules that wobble around annoyingly and make the brush impossible to control.

It would seem to many that the craft of brushmaking is a dying art.  Painfully few brush manufacturers are capable of producing consistantly high-quality brushes anymore.  Brushes of erratic size, bristles of stray length, bristles clipped off at the end....  The list goes on and on.  They just don't make em' like they used to, folks.  Which is even more shameful given the fact that the kolinsky sable is such a rare animal to begin with.  So many of these creatures are dying in order to produce garbage.

Rekab, despite using sub-standard materials and bristles, makes a pretty fine brush.  Fairly consistant in shape and lenghth, they have few clipped or stray bristles.  If Rekab used the same materials as Raphael or Winsor & Newton, they'd make one of the finest brushes around.  As it is, they make a pretty good brush that's made out of crap.

Kalish, despite advertising themselves as "the finest brushes in the world", do nothing to back this claim up.  This is a case of excellent materials, poor craftsmanship - basically the exact opposite of Rekab.  Almost every bristle in every Kalish brush I've examined has been clipped off.  Practically none of them end at their natural point.  Plus, to make matters worse, the length of each bristle varies wildly.  Clipped bristles + bristles of erratic length = a brush that won't point worth a darn no matter what you do.  These are, by far, the most poorly-crafted of the premium brushes listed here.  In fact, they are among the most poorly-crafted brushes I've seen at any price.

Winsor & Newton, in my opinion, still makes the best brush in the world... every once in a while.  When you find a properly-made Series 7, it's heaven.  Finding it, however, is hell.  Expect to go through a dozen or more brushes before finding a good one.  Winsor & Newton has been plagued by inconsistancy for years & seem to be doing very little to solve the problem.  Rumor has it they lost almost all of their senior brushmakers in a very short time, and, judging from their slipping standards, I find that easy to believe.  However, brushes in size 4 and larger seem to be much more consistantly-made than the smaller brushes.

The champs of craftsmanship?  Raphael and Scharff.  Hands down.  When you purchase a brush from either of these companies, you can expect a very consistantly well-made brush.  While I don't think either of them make the best brushes in the world, they certainly make the most consistantly good brushes in the world.  On a side note, I suspect that Scharff is actually made by Raphael, but haven't proven/disproven it yet.  The Scharff 3000 is identical to the Raphael 8408 (not the 8404 tested here) except for the paint job.

Check out Raphael's site and read (in incredibly bad English) how they do it from start to finish.  Ah, if only every brush manufacturer put so much pride in thier work....

http://www.raphael.fr/gb/08visiteguidee/visiteguidee.htm

One of the most overlooked aspects of a brush is it's design.  Even the slightest variation in bristle lenght or shape can drastically alter the performance of a brush.  There is no real winner here.  Each brush was designed to perform a certain way, so choose the one that fits your style the best.  The numbers in the description correspond to the numbers on the image to the left.

Most brushes are a variation of the Winsor & Newton Series 7 (1) design.  Ideally, the Series 7 has a very thick tuft of bristles of equal length, producing a brush that's full-bellied with a fairly quickly-tapered point.  This creates a brush with a lot of "snap" - in other words, when the tip of the brush is bent in a brushstroke, it will snap back to it's original shape immediately after it's lifted off the paper.  It also creates a very delicate touch - you don't have to use much pressure to increase the thickness of your line.  This can be a good thing, or a bad thing, depending on your style.  Also, the quickly-tapered tip of the brush is extremely maneuverable.  An excellent design for the artist who uses quick, spontaneous strokes.

The Rekab (2) and Kalish (3) brushes did their best to copy the Series 7 design with varying degrees of success.  Both are a little shorter in length, and the Rekab is the more full-bellied of the two, while the Kalish is a bit more cone-shaped.  Both have a fairly delicate touch and good snap.

The Raphael 8404 (4) is similar to the Series 7, but with longer bristles in proportion to the width of the brush.  Like the Series 7, it uses bristles of equal length, but the longer bristles make for a more shallow belly, and this gives the brush slightly less snap.  Overall, this is a fairly good brush design for most types of artists.  It will accommodate both the spontaneous and deliberate artist with equally steady, but not spectacular, performance.  Kind of a "jack of all trades, master of none" type of design.

The Scharff 3000 (5) has long bristles which are not nearly as densely-packed as most other brushes.  This creates a very long, cone-shaped brush with almost no belly at all, and an extremely long, sharp point.  As a result, more pressure than normal is required to vary the thickness of line, and the tip has much less snap and maneuverability.  This brush is taylor-made for the artist who uses very methodical, deliberate strokes.

The single most important part of the actual brush is the tuft of bristles.  If a brush uses good materials, good craftsmanship and good design, but has poor bristle quality, it's a useless brush.

All of the brushes in this demonstration are (supposedly) made from the tail hair of the male kolinsky sable in its' winter coat.  But, depending on how the brushmaker handles the hair, and depending on who supplies the hair to the brushmaker, bristle quality varies greatly from company to company.

There are several things to look for in a quality bristle.  When dry, the hair should be smooth, straight, and amber-colored, slightly darkening toward the tip, except for the very end, which should be soft-looking and wheat-colored.  Kolinsky bristles should not be dark brown, splotchy, wavy, or rough.  The bristle should come to such a fine point, that it's hard to see the tip without straining your eyes.  It should not come to an abrupt, clipped end.  All of the bristles in the brush should be of a uniform length.  There should not be any stray bristles that stick out further than the rest.

When all of these things are taken into consideration, the winners are, again, Rapael and Scharff.  The care they put into selecting and handling their bristles really shows in every brush they make.  You'd be hard-pressed to ever find a single clipped or stray bristle in either of these brushes.

Winsor & Newton has bristles that are just as high-quality, but they're not nearly as careful to remove clipped or stray bristles as Raphael or Scharff.  Nearly every Series 7 brush will have at least one clipped bristle and one bristle of stray length; usually more.

Kalish uses good bristles as well, but they appear to purposely clip the ends of their brushes after they're made in order to make the bristles a more uniform length.  This sort of treatment of good kolinsky hair is inexcusable.

Rekab uses the worst hair of all the brushes listed here.  These bristles are the kind one might expect from a bargain-basement kolinsky hair dealer.  They are brittle, blotchy and rough.  The do come to a natural point, but that point is not nearly as fine as the top-notch hair found in other premium brushes.  Likely, this is either hair from a different kind of sable, or it might be from different parts of the animal other than the tail.  Either way, it's pretty awful.  Fortunately, their brushmakers are skilled enough that they don't normally have many, if any, clipped or stray bristles.

When buying a brush, fan the dry bristles out with your fingers and examine them closely.  There should be no bristles that are unusually long or kinked.  There should (ideally) be no bristles that are cut at an abrupt end.  In a well-made brush, clipped bristles stick out like a sore thumb.  One or two clipped bristles can be expected, though, and will not usually hurt the performance of the brush, provided they are buried deep inside the tuft and don't reach the very tip of the brush.  If you're feeling steady, you can do a little surgery on brushes with only one or two clipped bristles.  Carefully separate the bad bristle from the rest (be careful not to kink or bend any of the good bristles) and clip it off as close to the ferrule as possible.

There are some parting tidbits that I'd like to leave you with, however.

First off, there is no "magic brush" that will suddenly make you a good artist, no matter how good it is.

Second, don't believe everything you read or hear.  Just because a company or artist claims a particular brush is "the best" doesn't make it so.

Third, the best thing to do is this:  first find your style, then find a brush that complements it.  Don't allow your tool to dictate how you work.  Find a tool that works for you.

Finally, if you're going to spend money on a premium brush, take the time to care for it properly.  When ink or paint is allowed to dry up near the base of the ferrule, the bristles will start to spread apart and the tip of the brush will split.  Rinse your brush out regularly with clean water while working, and wash it gently, but thoroughly, when you're finished.  There are several brush soaps that work well, or you can use a gentle shampoo and conditioner.  It is hair, after all.  Never allow paint or ink to dry on your brush!  If you use ink with shelac in it, rinse your brush more often and more thoroughly than normal.  Shelac will destroy a brush if allowed to dry.  Use old, worn-out brushes to do things like drybrush or to fill in large areas of pigment.  There's no need to use up a good, new brush on things like that.  This will increase your brush's life several times over.

Well, that's it.  I hope this will help someone out there make more informed decisions about their brushes.

Happy drawing,

mike crowell