There is a particular kind of art supply shop paralysis I recognise from my early years of painting. You stand in front of a rack of brushes — kolinsky sable, synthetic, mixed fibre, rounds, flats, mops, fans, riggers — and you genuinely do not know which ones you need or how to tell one from another. So you buy several, reasoning that more tools means more options means better paintings.
This is wrong. I know because I did it for longer than I would like to admit.
The brushes you own do not make your paintings. The brushes you understand make your paintings. And understanding a brush takes time — enough sessions with it that you know exactly what it will do when fully loaded, half-loaded, dry, pressed flat, pulled to the tip. That understanding cannot be distributed across twenty brushes. It accumulates through repetition with a small, chosen set.
Here are the five brushes I own and use. I have had some of them for years. I am not recommending that you buy exactly these — I am recommending the principle behind them.
1. Winsor & Newton Series 7 Round, Size 10
This is the brush I paint with most. It is a kolinsky sable round — the traditional standard for watercolour — and it does almost everything I ask of a painting. When fully loaded it holds a large reservoir of paint. When pressed and dragged it makes wide, expressive strokes. When brought to the tip it can work with reasonable precision in mid-size detail.
The Series 7 has a reputation among watercolour painters as the benchmark: expensive, worth it, likely to last five to ten years with proper care. A size 10 is generous enough to cover ground quickly and responsive enough not to feel unwieldy. It is the first brush I would recommend to anyone who has decided to take the practice seriously.
Cost: approximately £40–50. This sounds like a lot. It is less than a stack of cheap brushes that will collectively do a worse job and wear out in months.
2. Da Vinci Casaneo Wash Brush, Size 30
This is not a sable brush. The Casaneo series uses a synthetic fibre that mimics the water-holding capacity of squirrel hair — the traditional wash brush material — at a fraction of the cost. A size 30 Casaneo is large enough to lay a full-sheet wash in a single pass without running dry, which is the core requirement of a wash brush.
I use this brush at the beginning of almost every painting, for the initial wet-into-wet stage where I am establishing the broad tonal and colour structure of the piece. It is too large for anything precise, but precision is not the point at this stage. Coverage, speed, and the ability to drop colour into a still-wet surface are the point.
Cost: approximately £20–25. An equivalent squirrel mop would cost four or five times this for comparable performance.
3. Escoda Reserva Round, Size 6
This is my mid-size workhorse. The Escoda Reserva series uses kolinsky sable from a Spanish manufacturer whose brushes are, in my experience, comparable to Winsor & Newton Series 7 at a somewhat lower price. A size 6 fills the gap between the generous size 10 (which can be too large for tighter passages) and detailed work that requires a smaller brush.
I reach for the size 6 when I am working on the middle layer of a painting — the stage after the initial washes have dried and I am starting to define structure, add second-pass colour, and develop the scene. It is responsive enough for reasonable precision but loaded enough to cover a passage of sky or ground without constant reloading.
Cost: approximately £20–30. Good value for a high-quality kolinsky sable.
4. Winsor & Newton Series 7 Round, Size 2
I use this brush sparingly and deliberately. It is a small sable round for the final stage of a painting — the calligraphic details, the dark accents, the specific marks that resolve an otherwise ambiguous passage. A branch against a sky. The reflection of a post in still water. The dark underside of a leaf catching a shadow.
The temptation with a small brush is to use it too early and too much. I force myself to keep it on the table, capped, until the painting is substantially complete. Adding detail before the underlying structure is right only complicates the rescue. When the structure is right, the small brush goes in with a clear purpose and a limited number of marks.
Cost: approximately £15–20 for the size 2.
5. A Cheap Flat Brush, 3/4 inch
This is the one that surprises workshop participants. Alongside four quality brushes that I can justify on grounds of performance and longevity, I keep a flat hog-hair brush — the kind sold for oil painting or household use — that costs about £3.
I use it for one specific purpose: lifting wet paint. When a passage has gone wrong, or when I want to soften an edge that has dried too hard, I wet the flat brush and drag it across the offending area to lift colour back off the paper. The stiff bristles are more aggressive than a soft sable and lift more cleanly.
A cheap flat brush can also be used dry, raked across a wet surface to suggest texture — grasses, foliage, the broken surface of water. It is one of the few techniques that specifically benefits from a rough, slightly unpredictable tool.
On Sable vs Synthetic
The honest answer is that kolinsky sable is better for watercolour than synthetic alternatives, and the difference is meaningful at intermediate and advanced levels. Sable holds more paint, snaps back to a point more reliably, and responds more subtly to pressure variations. For the first few months of learning, a good-quality synthetic round will serve perfectly well — the Escoda Prado or Da Vinci Casaneo series are recommended.
Once you have decided you are serious about watercolour and you want to invest in tools that will last years rather than months, kolinsky sable rounds are worth the price. Not because they make painting easier, but because they get out of the way — they do exactly what you ask without fighting or compensating for the tool.
On Caring for Brushes
Good brushes last a long time if treated well. The main rules: never leave a brush standing on its tip in water (the fibres deform permanently). Always rinse thoroughly after use. Reshape to a point while wet and allow to dry horizontally. Never use sable brushes with masking fluid — the rubber destroys the fibres.
The Series 7 size 10 I use most is four years old. It still points as well as the day I bought it. This is not magic — it is basic care of a good tool.
What I Tell Workshop Participants
At my Carshalton workshops, I provide all materials — including brushes. The brushes I use for workshops are quality synthetics rather than sable, for the practical reason that they survive more intensive handling in a teaching context and I cannot replace eight kolinsky sables after every session.
But I tell participants the same thing I have written here: the goal is not to own the best brushes in the world. The goal is to know your brushes well enough that they become extensions of your intention rather than obstacles to it. Start with one or two good ones. Learn them thoroughly. Buy the expensive sable when you know what you are asking it to do.
Workshops in Carshalton are open to complete beginners — all materials provided, small groups, no outcome pressure. Booking at simonrobinstephensart.com/workshops.
