The Joys of Amazon Giftcards. . .

One of the three sizes of Winsor & Newton Cotman watercolor brushes I ordered this afternoon. Should have 'em by the weekend!

There is something nice about sitting on Amazon giftcards for a little while until clarity reveals what one ought to use them for. Such was the case with a remaining Christmas gift from my in-laws this year. I finally put together an order this afternoon to replace a few dried up, or soon to be, bottles of Citadel colors and also selected two of each of my three preferred brush sizes -- #1, #3, and #6 rounds.

These are synthetic bristle brushes intended for watercolorists, but I have long used them for figure painting, and the points usually last long enough for three or four units, depending on the size, before they are relegated to the base-coating and dry-brushing jar. They give me the results I seek and seem to provide a nice compromise between ready availability, durability, and usefulness on the one hand and price on the other. I'll need to replaced my 20 year old 000 sable before long, but honestly I don't rely on it all that much any more, so the matter is not yet too pressing.

In other news, I spent about an hour last night carefully applying oil-based silver paint to bayonets, musket barrels, firelocks, and a few officers' swords with my current #1 round, more dry-brushing a very sparing amount to each item, and the result looks rather nice today if I do say so myself. I'll spare everyone yet another Kodak moment (Remember those?) photographic update until things progress just a bit more though.

-- Stokes

Comments

Independentwargamesgroup said…

A 20 year old sable Stokes? How many hairs does it have left? It must have as many hairs as is on my head and that isnt many. Ive found that I can use cheaper polypropylene brushes for blocking in and painting bases. They are adequate and after a wash with the GW inks I use the best sables I can afford but even with a bit of care they dont last more than a year or so. So well done.

4:13 AM

Der Alte Fritz said…

All of my synthetic brushes seem to split down the middle and then the ends of each new section start to curl, thus I don't use synthetic brushes anymore.

Jim

8:18 AM

Fitz-Badger said…

One advantage I have as a slow painter is it takes longer to wear down brushes. ha ha

My experience with synthetic brushes is similar to Der Alte Fritz's, so I only use them for things like dry-brushing large items, painting on glue for flocking, and painting on gesso for priming.

I was just eyeing some brushes on amazon last night, and saw some of the Cotman brushes show up in the listings. But I didn't end up buying any brushes.

I remember "Kodak moments" and Paul Simon's "Kodachrome" song.

8:15 PM

The 18th century? What's the Fascination?

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An Early July Hussar Update. . .

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The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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