Brushes
Until now I only bought expensive brushes for watercolour and ink. For aqrylic and oil I always got the cheapest or still used the old brushes from my grandfather (they were at least 20 years old and understandingly pretty worn out). When I showed my first paintings to my teachers at the art school……they insisted that I get some new and descent brushes. I got some pighair brushes and some artificial bristels called brislon….and I became a big fan of the brislon ones. They have a nice flex and stiffness, they had a way bigger impact on my painting than I imagined brushes could have.
Paint
I started the paintings all in acrylic, I usually paint with it. But after a while I got very annoyed with the change it under goes when it dries out. Always when I got home the colours where so dull that it changed the whole character of the painting.
So I got my self some oil paint, cobra watermixable oilpaint. It sounds like a paradox but it works very good and for the other people in the room it is very nice not to have the terpentine smell all over the place. I still sketch with acrylic the composition and the light situation roughly on the cardboard and then I use oil paint for the rest. When I want to correct something in the painting, I use more and more charcoal to sketch quickly the new parts onto the background.
Brislon bristles Brushes