Which Brush? Spotters and Miniatures

I'm often asked about which is the best brush for botanical work but as usual there's no simple answer! I use lots of types of brushes for different jobs! So will break this into brush types, starting with a post on one type of brush; the miniature or spotter. Here's my own opinion on 5 different brushes in the range. 

Paintbrushes accumulated over the years! p.s. only store this way when dry, otherwish water and paint lies in the ferrule and that's bad!

What is a miniature or spotter? Both miniature and spotter brushes are short haired brushes that allow excellent control for fine detail work, this feature makes them very useful to botanical artists who favour dry brush and fine detail techniques, and is especially good for the vellum painter.  A spotter is much the same as a miniature but sometimes has a slightly fatter belly, both should have a sharp tapered point for extra fine detail. 

What size of spotter is best? I don't often use anything  anything smaller than a size 1 and in these brushes certainly no larger than a size 3, although sizes seem to vary between manufacturers. 

For washes I use round or pointed brushes which have longer hairs and size 5 or 6 plus, I also use flats for some jobs such as lifting and half riggers for long flowing lines. I'll discuss them some other time in a separate post.

The five brushes left to right: Winsor & Newton Series 7 miniature, Rosemary & Co spotter,  David Jackson spotter, Raphael 8048 and Pro Arte series 107 

Pressing the 5 brushes against the paper, shows just how different they are.

The 5 Brushes 

Winsor and Newton Series 7 miniatures, Kolinsky sable size 1  £8.25 - £12

One of the most popular brushes and one that I've used for many years, but have noticed some inconsistency in quality over the past few years with stray and bent hairs. It's a lovely looking brush though and handles well. It appears to be made with hairs slightly longer hairs in the middle compared to the outside, I think maybe for this reason they splay slightly sometimes. But it's generally a really good 'all rounder' and has a lovely point, which is superior to the Rosemary and Co but not as good as the David Jackson or the Raphael although  probably on a par with the Pro Arte. The lines that I painted with it were fine but not as clean  as others.  It's good for dry brush work but it's an expensive brush to wears out if you use it for this purpose. I feel like the hairs are finer and softer than say the Raphael but not as soft as the Rosemary &Co, great for very delicate work, where little pressure is required, such as on vellum. 

Oak Leaves, watercolour on paper, painted all detail with W & N miniature

Some splaying of hairs, is annoying!

The effect on W & N and Rosemary and Co after much dry brush work!

Rosemary & Co spotter series 325, size 1 £4.25 

Half the price of most sable brushes, to me this spotter is really a different type of brush. Looking at the 5 brushes together, you can immediately see that it's much fatter in the belly than the other miniatures and has more hairs which seem softer and possibly finer - I should really put this to the test under the microscope but this is just a quick post! The point seems to dull quite quickly, possibly because of the finer hair, but initially it's a good enough point and if you don't paint so much it should last a while. The biggest problem I have with Rosemary & Co brushes is the splaying of hairs, worse than W & N and which happens fairly early on in the life of the brush, and even more so with the longer haired round / pointed brushes. The point is less tapered too and this tends to result in less of a smooth fine line compared to the David Jackson and the Raphael brushes, on close analysis the fine lines are more broken up and therefore less contact is made with the paper so perhaps this is to do whith the chunky build and maybe a bit more water is needed. Having said all that, this brush comes into its own for 'modelling' dry brush work and I use it largely for this purpose. It lasts for ages and is actually better with some wear. In particular, I love it for what I call 'polishing' dry brush work on vellum, which is an approach that I use to add a very fine layer of colour over previous dry brush to give shine, it's a very dry approach using quite a bit of pressure which allows me to layer, similar to the equivalent of a final wash on a watercolour. Below is an example of using a Rosemary and Co spotter on a maple leaf to get the 'polished, look on vellum! 

Rosemary and Co spotters are great for dry brush work to achieve rich colour and depth

Also 'Polishing' dry brush is easier to achieve with the Rosemary & Co spotter

David Jackson Spotter, size 1 £? Contact The Brushman for information

David Jackson is a true craftsman and he made some spotter brushes for me several years ago, I think back 2012. I use them frequently and they are as good today as they were the day he very kindly put them through my door! The fine line work is by far the best, the brush holds enough water in its belly to maintain contact with the paper for a flowing fine line. This is my favourite little brush for detail working on vellum, I love to use it when painting butterflies, the fine point can give incredible detail for the most  delicate dry brush work yet doesn't seem to wear at all, probably because so little pressure is required and it just glides across the surface with no friction. The hairs are quite soft though so it won't allow an lifting but that not the purpose of a brush like this. 

David Jackson's brushes are perfect for fine lines and detail, such as the fine scales of a moth wing

Raphael 8404  Red Sable size 3/0 approx  £7 -£10 

Narrower at the ferrule than series 7 and considerably narrower than the Rosemary & Co. This brush is more tapered but has enough belly to hold the right amount of water. This allows beautiful fine lines to be painted. It also seems a bit stiffer and is great for tidying edges and line work. I find the firmer brush perfect for fine tapered hairs when using body colour but also for very fine details, such as veins as well as for tidying edges. An excellent and versatile brush that rivals the Winsor & Newton miniature. Here's a link for the lowest price 8404. They also make the 8400 which is Kolinsky sable and extra short round brush, which is probably even better for dry brush.....I've ordered one! Beautiful brushes that last. I've had mine in excess of 5 years.

Using the Raphael for painting fine hairs with body colour and a grey fine shadow line too. This gives additional depth to the hairs

Pro Arte 107 spotter, size 1 £2.60 - £3.50

A great low cost synthetic brush for lovely fine detail. I've only recently started using this one but on the downside the point goes fairly soon and you get that characteristic bent tip thet happens with many synthetic brushes but for the price, and if you don't like to use animal poducts, it's a pretty amazing little brush. Below is one I purchased a couple of weeks ago, and you can see the point has bent but if you use it for fine line work and not for dry brush it will last long. The fine lines are actually marginally better than with the W& N brush and the stiffer synthetic hair means you can tidy up edges and push the paint a little more than with a sable brush als good for hairs. So again it's a brush with a slightly different role and one I use a lot! Sold by several shops, including Heaton Cooper and Pullingers but often in the craft / hobby range

Petal painted with Pro Arte spotter ( apart from the wash which was painted with a size 5 round) Its great for the veins and sharp edges and 'drawing' and 'dragging' dry brush techniques, but loses the point quickly.

The point start to bend and this happens a lot with synthetics but it's still a fantastic little brush

Sets of Brushes
 I don't bother with sets of brushes by one manufactuer, because you usually end up with one or two that you don't need and often there are good offers on some brushes, so it's a bit of a false economy. But it you have no idea regarding where to start I supose it gives a taster of whats available.

Which is the Best? 

To be fair I like and use all of these brushes, I'd say the one that impresses me the most is David Jackson's brush, because of the smoothness of the line and the lack of friction between paper and brush. But I like them all for different reasons as outlined above. I tested them all out for lines the various dry brush techniques and they all have slightly different outcomes. I actually think it's worth investing in one of each of these brushes as a learner. They will all be used and small brushes are not so expensive. You can shop around and buy all of them for under £35! You may well find you have different preference but the best way to find out what suits you is to try different types, rather than blindly following somebody else's suggestions. Your brush really can make a difference and its very personal!

Painting lines, David Jackson and Raphael were clear winners here.

Closer  ( magnified x2) inspection shows the smoother lines from the Jackson brush but the Rosemary and Co is better suited to dry brush

There's much more I could say about brushes and will try to write another post on other brushes at some time. This just filled the darkest of mornings when painting was near on impossible! hence the dark photographs.

Back to Work..... Almost! Organising the Materials and Equipment

It's been a very long absence from the blog due to yet another house move...... hopefully the last for a while.
This meant that the time had come to pull the art stuff out of storage!
I've relocated to a small flat in an Old Rectory in the village of Checkley, Staffordshire. As for neighbours, I have a beautiful church complete with graveyard. On the downside I still don't have the have the luxury of a dedicated studio to put all the art materials into, it's taken some adjusting too and I've had to streamline things significantly, because as much as I love Fancis Bacon's studio I don't think I could live in a 'Baconesque' workspace!  
  
What's next?  I've spent months thinking about my work, the main aim now is to undertake some larger works on vellum as well as some more complex graphite pieces, all of which have been in the planning for more than a year.

For the first time I'll be working  with whole vellum skins. Natural vellum  is a slightly more challenging surface than Kelmscott but I prefer the colour and venation  for the autumnal  subjects. The larger sized works will need space, which is something I'm pretty short of, so there's a real need to be organised.

Trying to be organised!

So first things first.... time to sort out the new workspace. This will no doubt involve some trial and error and it's going to be tricky given the small working area! I've a decent window ( the one shown below and another larger window. A small desk fits into the window space so that will do the job nicely. The main problem is that I have too much stuff! - it's currently a bit like a cockpit that I have to climb into! 
Having had such a long break from the blog it seemed like a natural thing to take stock, and, I though it might be useful to write about the materials and equipment that I use as this always seems to be of interest. It will help me to decide what stays and what has to go. Being organised and comfortable in the workplace, with everything at hand is often more difficult than it might first seem.

Not very organised workspace! The easel sits at the side of the small desk with reference material pinned to the drawing board. Angle poise illuminated magnifier lamp is bolted to the desk and positioned over the drawing board. The long drawer in the desk houses rulers, dividers, viewfinders, painting mediums and various measuring devices as well as the smaller cutting mats.   

The first consideration is the desk and easel.  Having looked at lots of lovely desks including the ones that tilt, I decided that I didn't have enough room for a fancy desk or large table. When considering the fact that I prefer to work fairly upright, and, being a fairly 'dry' painter,  I decided that a separate easel is the way to go with a small desk alongside. This is actually an improvement - it's not the first time I've used the easel, it's particularly good for larger works and can tilt slightly to suit. An adjustable height seat can be raised and lowered making it easy to reach those difficult areas or I can stand.  I've always used a steeply angled drawing board, to me it's the only way to see the work accurately, otherwise the work is leaning away with and the perspective distorted, the spine becomes strained if you struggle to see the work properly by leaning over it...that's bad in the long term.  The only problem with an upright desk based drawing board is the redundant space behind the board, which tends to gather clutter. I already had my old easel from my art school days ( 30 something years!) so no need to buy anything new, which is a bonus! It's a radial easel, which is pretty heavy weight and made from beech wood. This type of easel can also be folded and stored too and the tripod feet allow good positioning at the base.

Radial easel has adjustable height and can lean a fair bit too if needed The tripod base allows the feet to tuck under the chair and desk, so you can get up very close or work further away at a height that suits, with the option of standing too. A pair of pliers is needed to secure the nuts, otherwise the weight of the drawing board can cause the support to fall

 The other advantage is being able to use different sizes of MDF drawing boards, which I had cut at the DIY store. This way I can use the most appropriate sized board for the work and swap between works. The board can be positioned at a comfortable working height on the easel depending on the size of the work, notes, photos and even some subjects can be pinned to the board so that they're in the direct line of vision. Having material in the line of vision is important when painting.  The desk alongside can be used to position and light the subject as well as for small works, sketchbooks and materials etc.

So what else do I really need in the work area?  First of all the technical stuff - this can takes up quite a bit of room. Technology can be really useful in planning work, especially when the subject is dying on you or short lived, occasionally its the only route available material. My first space saving idea  is to ditch the laptop from the immediate workspace and instead I opted for an iPad Air with the addition of the the small keyboard, which works a treat! The iPad or tablet is a very handy tool for viewing detailed reference materials, it can be positioned on the desk or on the drawing board ( again direct line of vision). With the right programmes it's easy enough to do most of the same things on the iPad as on the laptop. I use Photo Transfer App for moving photos from different devices ( iPhone to iPad I use the Air Drop but use Photo Transfer to the laptop).  Work on the laptop is done outside the painting area. I use a Canon wireless printer, which sits on a small table in case I want to print off any reference material. It's always useful to take lots of photos. tend to throw the photos onto the floor to get inspiration for compositions by looking at shapes. I use a combination of photos taken on the iPhone or iPad which can print directly to the printer.  For better quality I use an Sony alpha 100 DSLR camera.  It's an older  DSLR now but still takes great pictures. I use Photoshop Elements 13 to edit, having just upgraded I previously used PS 8 for a number of years. To be honest PS 8 does as much as I need.

For more complicated compositions - I tend to take lots of photos of the plant in situ (sometimes hundreds of photos!) 10-20 selected for printing, I throw then on the floor and look for good shapes and ideas, then make numerous thumbnail sketches.

The next problem is lighting and positioning subjects.  I've already touched on this and so far I'm finding it much easier now the space gobbling drawing board is gone from the desk because: 1. I've more free room on the desk for the subject and 2. I can pin some materials to the board.  The  magnifier lamp shown above is for the painting, and it clamps desk with a long adjustable arm - this is important! But I also need to light the subject and have several lamps which give off different types of light, some are warm light and others are daylight lamps so give off a cooler light, which lamp depends on what I'm doing and the outcome I'm looking for.  I use a regular low cost lamp with adjustable arm ( in the images above) this lamp is great for tying subjects to ( as shown)! The other lamp used is a twistable daylight lamp ( shown below). This type of lamp works well because I get a good adjustment on the angle. To light a subject well you have to play with the distance and the angle of the light. Too close and there's too much contrast ( lights are bleached out and the darks are black),  too far away means it's all mid tone and lacks drama. So again depends what you are looking for in the finished result.

Twistable daylight lamp ( note: the tin can reflects a little light back) I try to get a good range of highlight, mid tone and shade, with a little reflected light too)

Pinning subjects to foam board to position on the drawing board.

I place white card behind the subject so it's clear to see. I usually photograph it in situ. I use a retort stand ( which I can't find at the moment) and all sorts of jars, boxes and anything I can find to arrange subjects.  For ' flat' subjects, such as dissections and leaf portraits,  I secure the subject to foam board with florist wire and dressmaking pins and make good use of the sticky Oasis Minifix, which is brilliant stuff for the natural positioning of leaves etc. These can be places on the easel next to the watercolour paper.


 Having bad eyesight means that numerous magnifiers are a must have, the main one is the big illuminated Draper angle poise magnifier.  It's a bit heavy and cumbersome and given a choice I'd swap it for something more lightweight but the magnifier is a decent size and quality is good enough so it's stays. I use several smaller hand helds with magnification from a x 1 up to x5. They are used to see more clearly but also to check for clean edges and overlaps ( the brass one top left is good for this ). They're also useful for examining detail in the subject. I also have a loupe but its' disappeared at the moment.

A few of the various strength magnifiers

Paints and palettes.  I always revert back to my old faithful W & N Artist pans in the modified wooden paintbox, which I've had for many years. Most recently I decided to secure the pans with Velcro because they were always dislodging. The colours are arranged in W & N colour chart order ( I keep a painted reference card in the lid of the box as well as the chart on my drawing board. I tend to take out the colours I'm using and keep them on the palette. I prefer pans for botanical work as they're more suited to a 'dry' painting style, particularly when working on vellum. A common problem is having far too many paints, which is a mistake I made - an absolute maximum of 24 colours is all that are required but I've got them so may as well make use of them now.

Attaching the pans with Velcro stops them from falling out.

 I also have various tubes of paint, including Daniel Smith, W &N and Sennelier which I keep in the drawer. I use these for larger washes and store these in Tupperware! I don't use them very often but some colours are preferable for certain jobs.

Additional tubes, seldom used but still useful

 Limiting myself to two ceramic palettes, one is deeper at one side for mixing larger amounts of paint, the other has small wells and a lid which is very useful for mixing and for keeping the dust out....dust and fluff is the enemy! I use jam jars with lids for water, again the lid keep any dust out!

Ceramic palettes deep palette top and palette with lid.

  Brushes. The odds and ends live in old tin cans but most brushes now live in a folding brush holder, which was a free gift from Ken Bromley. This can hang below the drawing board on the easel for ease of access. It's also really useful for transporting them without damage. I use W & N Kolinsky sable, miniatures, rounds and flats, Rosemary and Co, spotters, designer and short flats ( my favourite little brush!) I also have some beautiful hand made brushes, which were a gift from the Brushman,  David Jackson. They have the finest points I've ever come across. I've also a few old da Vinci brushes, but supply has been an issue with these. 

Old tin cans make good additional storage containers

Brush Holder, very handy free gift!

                                    Pencils are kept in a pencil roll, for space saving.

I've always kept pencils in their tins until recently but have started to store them all in pencil rolls, they're lighter and more space efficient as well as easy to transport. I use mostly Faber Castell 9000 and sometimes Cretacolour Monoliths - all for tonal work. I use a variety of mechanical pencils for fine line drawing.

All other bit and pieces, such as sharps e.g.scalpels, blades, things for securing subjects, erasers etc. are kept in an old  Gillette razor box. This was given to me many years ago by a friend, I think it was a shop display box. It has a glass lid. I also keep the mechanical pencils and  leads in it- otherwise these seem to get lost..... I love this box!

A useful and lovely box for the sharps and easily lost items.

Various dried subjects and reference material, such as seed pods, shells, and skulls are kept in boxes. These are all handy reference material collected over the years and too valuable and sentimental to throw away.  Many have been the subject of paintings and some were nurtured from seed and produced seed themselves.

One of the boxes of old subject material

 Books are essentials too, particularly reference and the Floras. Many of the instruction type or  coffee table style books were sold or given away because of lack of space.  I've built tall narrow bookcases, which have been painted and strategically placed around the flat, they look OK and don't dominate too much. I also keep the sketchbooks in the book case.

 My biggest storage problem is paper, and vellum storage because of the size. Much as I've always wanted one, I don't have enough room for a plan chest, although you can get then in a coffee table style, but wouldn't want to keep paper and especially vellum near to a fireplace. So The paper lives in study cardboard boxes under the bed! The vellum lives on top of the wardrobe! I use Fabriano Artistico HP 140 lb imperial sheets and on a roll as well as 300lb imperial sheets. For graphite I use the same Fabriano or the blocks of Arches HP 140lb 18 x24 inches.

Small vellum pieces must to be kept flat and in dry but not too hot conditions, skins are rolled, so that's no so bad.  Here's the skin so you can see the problem once unrolled! Well that's my next problem...to paint the autumn collections started two years ago but this time onto vellum.....once I've flattened it!

Next project: Natural vellum skin to paint the autumn studies which I started in Sept 2013. Unfortunately I had to put this work on hold - it's been in the back of my mind since and I'm looking forward to getting started.

It's surprising just how much art stuff is accumulated over the years! I wrote a full list of materials when I moved ....it was a bit of an eye opener! So if you're about to take up painting you might want to consider the size of the house! In this post I've mentioned just a fraction of what I've accumulated but limited it to the things that I use regularly. There's lots more, including microscopes, a large mount cutters, portfolios, a guillotine etc. etc. ....all of which take valuable space.... not too mention all the unfinished work and studies.
 

Now the workspace and materials are sorted all that remains is to start work!

No. 18, 30 Day Challenge, Dead Rose on vellum

After the rushed rosebuds yesterday, I wanted to spend a bit more time on today's painting so allowed about half a day. I have some natural vellum and wanted to try it out, it's a lovely honey colour,  shame this photograph doesn't really show the colour but you can see the veins in the skin.  Vellum paintings take a long time normally so I decided to paint using a very limited palette using some of the earth colours in my palette, almost like an under-painting.... not just because time was limited but also because it suited the subject for today's painting.
The subject is a dead rose that I've had since my birthday last year. It was originally white and formed part of a beautiful bouquet....a very special birthday gift! It always seems a shame that cut flowers fade so soon, so I kept a few and they live on the kitchen windowsill now.....as a keepsake and are just as appealing to the eye even in this decayed state.

Detail of  dead rose showing the venation pattern, the viens in the rose suit the vellum well!

Colours: Raw Umber, Burnt Sienna, Gold Ochre and a tiny amount of Sepia. I also used a very light wash of Cerulean in areas on the left side ( light side)  of the flower, to lift it.
I applied a very light wash of raw umber and burnt sienna, with some gold ochere on the left side.  first, then modelled the suface using the appropriate dry brush technique. I added the veins using a needlepoint brush which was from the The Brushman, David Jackson. Thank you David! wonderful brush.