Acrylic Brush Arsenal

This is my general arsenal of brushes when going into battle with an acrylic painting. Of course there’s no right or wrong when it comes to brushes that work for you, but these are the ones that see the most use in my house.

#1. Robert Simmons ¾” Square Craft Painter Wash Brush
These brushes are fantastic for laying down thick areas of flat color, and for laying down soupy washes and glazes. They aren’t cheap (around $15-20), but so long as you treat them right they’ll last a great deal longer than most other brushes you’ll use. I’ve had this one for about 8 years and it’s still holding in there.

#2. Princeton Art & Brush Co. ¾” Square Wash Brush
This is pretty much the same exact brush as the last one, just brand new, and without the battle scars. When my #1 brush eventually becomes unusable, I’ll swap this baby into rotation. I just thought you might want to see what a new one looks like should you try and look for one in a store.

#3. Robert Simmons Aquatip #1 Round Brush
I personally love this Aquatip line of brushes because they’ve got an excellent feel to them. It’s synthetic hair (all of my brushes are synthetic sable hair) and the acrylic paint flows well through the tips for both direct opaque painting and washes. This line of brushes has become harder and harder for me to find, so I’ve since switched brands to the kind in #4.

#4. DaVinci Junior Synthetics #4 Round Brush.
This is my workhorse. I use this brush for about 80% of my painting needs. They maintain and hold a good sharp tip so you can get really detailed without having to switch to a smaller brush. I painted the entire Joker’s face and the big leather glove in “The Joker’s Calling Card” in my gallery exclusively with this brush, if that gives you any indication of how useful I find it. These will run you about $3-4 bucks each and will keep a pretty good point for a painting or three before you’ll need to retire it.

#5. P Princeton Art & Brush Co. #1 Round Brush.
This is my super-fine detailer. I break this one out whenever I really need to focus on a small area, or be really exacting with my strokes. It’s really good for defining hair lines, eyebrows and anything where my #4 brush is too big to travel. These are pretty cheap at about $1.25 each.

#6. 4” House Painting Brush (Any brand will do)
I use this brush exclusively for priming my illustration board with gesso or matte medium, and laying down HUGE washes of color at the start of a painting. If I want to start off with a thin red background and paint everything on top of that, this is the brush I go to. DO NOT BUY THIS BRUSH AT AN ART STORE!!! They will charge you a small fortune for this thing, when you can get one just as good at Home Depot or any other hardware store for just a few bucks. You have been warned.

#7. All-Purpose Mixing Brush
This is probably the most important one in the entire set because it stands as a lessoned learned. DO NOT MIX YOUR PAINTS WITH YOUR GOOD BRUSHES!!! The quickest way to throw away money is to use your good brushes to mix your paint. Acrylic paint is absolute murder on brushes for the simple fact that you are basically painting with plastic. Once the paint works its way into the base of the brush’s bristles and dries… that’s it. There’s no getting rid of it. You now have a plastic-coated brush. So you need to do your best to keep that paint out of your brushes, by not cramming it in there by using it to mix your paint. Get yourself an old brush that you no longer care about and use that as your paint mixer. Trust me on this one. Don’t find out the hard way.

General Paint Brush Maintenance
Once you start a painting session with a brush make sure you keep it wet until you get a chance to wash it thoroughly with soap and water. Take a second every ten minutes or so to dip the brushes that you’ve been using and set aside (but haven’t washed yet) into some water and lay them down with the tips still dripping wet. If you let your brushes dry with your dirty paint water in them you will drastically shorten their usable lifespan. When it comes time to wash the brushes, I prefer to use shampoo (like whatever kind you have in your shower for your hair) instead of soap or detergent. It’s a bit gentler on the brushes and helps to extend their lifespan. Also when actively washing them, do your best to remove any paint that may have worked its way into the base of the brush.

Hope this helps guys!