It is legitimate to use any brush for any media or technique if it does what you want it to do. Thus, although Pro Arte take great pains to produce brushes that are 'fit for purpose', lots of them cross creative boundaries.
Let Pro Arte explain the basic shapes & brush filament shapes first!
The basic common tip shapes are The above are recognised watercolour brushes with filaments of soft spring materials; pure sable, synthetic sable (Prolene), sable/synthetic mix (Connoisseur), and white nylon (Polar). They all have good colour holding properties and point or shape with precision. Mops and wash brushes are for carrying loaded colour over large areas and they are usually formed from squirrel hair. Fans are useful for special effects.
Oil and acrylic painting requires a stronger, stiffer filament and hog bristle is the time-honoured natural resource (above left). Acylic paint is a relatively modern medium for which Pro Arte developed a special synthetic brush as an alternative to hog. Our Acrylix™ ranges in both white (above) or the shorter handled brown have proved very popular with oil painters too. These are the common filament profiles. Fan, again is useful for effects.
There are of course a few other special purpose brushes such as Stencil with their short stiff bristles, flat Ron Ranson Hakes and Varnish brushes. See the beautiful Sword liners and Writers’ brushes for traditional signwriting.
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