Brushes for heavy body acrylic paint

First look at brushes for large heavy body acrylic paint

Needed some 3/4-inch and 1-inch brushes for paintings about 30 inches square. I use synthetic brushes for painting with acrylic. They hold their shape better than hog bristle, when used with acrylic paint. Here I'm reviewing several long-handled brushes.

Blick Studio Synthetic Brushes (not pictured, not recommended)

Two long-handled flat brushes (#12 and #16) are still my favorite brushes for use with Golden heavy body acrylic -- as long as they're large enough. I must have purchased these two several years ago. Recently I ordered larger sizes and was so disappointed that I returned them to DickBlick.com. 

The ones sold now as Blick Studio Synthetic brushes are completely different. The earlier brushes were labeled "Made in Japan" while the current brushes are marked "made in India." The current handles are lighter, slimmer, and made of different wood. More important, the bristles are much softer and less even.

Silver Brush Bristlon Stiff, long handled -- series 1901

This is the brush that Dick Blick's product support line (800-943-2542) recommended as the closes match to what I want -- stiff, not too stiff, top quality bristles in a synthetic brush for heavy body acrylic. The product support tech said this series will give me a more precise tip than the daVinci Top Acryl Synthetic Bristle series. 

I ordered two flat brushes in the Silver Brush Bristlon series:

• #10 (13/16" wide, 1 3/8" long)
• #12 (1" wide, 1 9/16" long). This is the biggest flat brush in this series.

The handles are shaped well for comfort, and the bristles look shaped well. The tips didn't look quite as even as I expected, but tests on some reusable brush practice paper (Magic Water Painting Paper #KN3710) looked fine once the bristles were fully loaded with distilled water.

This reusable paper is great, by the way, for getting a sense of how a brush will behave. It's designed for practicing brush strokes, especially for sumi painting. The package comes with three sheets of the paper (about $9.50) and works as well as the more expensive Original Buddha Board. 

da Vinci Top Acryl Synthetic

Because I also wanted some larger angle brushes, I ordered three from the da Vinci Top Acryl Synthetic Series 7382 series. Da Vinci calls their angle brushes "slant" brushes. I bought the three largest sizes:

• #12 (17/32" wide, 28/32" long)
• #16 (11/16" wide, 1 1/4" long)
• #20 (27/32" wide, 1 3/8" long)

Dick Blick product information was correct, that the bristles on these brushes aren't as precisely trimmed as on the Silver Brush Bristlon brushes. Not only that -- they're much, much softer than the Silver Brush Bristlon brushes. At first I thought I might need to return them. After I worked with them a little on the reusable brush practicing paper, though, I decided to keep them. 

I'll report later on how well they do in painting with heavy body paint. They're so soft that I'm skeptical.

Princeton Catalyst Polytip -- Angle Bright

I knew from experience that the Princeton Catalyst angle brushes would be really, really stiff. I went ahead and ordered a 1" angle brush, though, because I want one this big. It's the #12 -- 1" wide, 1 9/16" long. The tips look less even than those on the da Vinci brushes above, but I think they'll do. If not, will report here soon.

Other brushes for heavy body acrylic paint

I have a few other long-handled brushes I use for heavy body acrylic, and will report on these earlier purchases in another review article here.