Squirrel hair is suitable for watercolor painting, inking and any other low-resistance mediums.Д«adger: A popular hair for oil painting. Squirrel: Very soft hair with little snap due to a lack of resistance. Sable brushes are extremely fine, springy and hold lots of water, making them perfect for watercolor painting and fine oil/acrylic painting. Sable: Not actually made from sable hair but rather from the tail of a species of mink (a member of the weasel family) found in North-Eastern China and Siberia. I enjoy using hog hair brushes for general oil painting work, but not so much for the finer details. Hog hair brushes tend to do most of the heavy lifting in oil painting due to their durability and stiffness. I would avoid cheap synthetic brushes as they are not durable and lose shape quickly. Most synthetic brush manufactures will combine synthetic bristles with animal bristles so you get the best of both worlds. Synthetic: Economical and versatile options for all painting mediums. Here is a summary of the different bristles: I make use of both synthetic and animal hair brushes for my paintings. However, synthetic brushes have come a long way. Watercolor painting requires soft bristles which can hold lots of water.Д«ristles for artist brushes come in two forms - synthetic and animal.В Animal hair brushes tend to be more expensive but they can hold and apply paint in a way which is not possible with synthetic brushes. Acrylic paint is not as harsh so you can use bristles which are a bit finer. For example, oil painting requires bristles which are resilient and have a nice spring.

The bristles will generally determine what medium a brush is suitable for. Artist brushes come with many different types of bristles.

Paintbrush art