When it comes to mastering a trade, it’s important to have all the tools. Whether you’re attempting to work with oil paints for the first time, or have been a dabbler for a while, you’ll be taken aback by just how much of an influence the right brushes can have on your artwork.
Blindly purchasing a starter brush set and experimenting as you go is all well and good, but let us break down exactly what each of those peculiar and particular oil paint brushes do, and what materials they should be made from.
What kind of bristles should oil paint brushes have?
Oil paint is a thick, heavy medium. That means you’ll need to purchase brushes that can not only handle the weight of the paint but are able to transfer it onto your canvas smoothly and consistently.
Hog hair
The most common type of brush used for oil painting to this day is made from hog hair. This is because the bristles are strong, stiff and durable – which makes them able to hold and properly distribute medium-heavy bodied paint. What’s more, hog hairs suffer from split ends. Though that might seem like a negative, these split ends are known as ‘flags’, and they actually help the brush to hold onto more paint and apply it evenly. That ‘scrubbing’ motion you’ll often see when oil paint is applied to canvas is merely due to the fact that the thick, hog hair bristles are able to withstand the coarse, primed surface that oil paints are usually applied to.
Sable hair
Another popular hair type for oil paint brushes is sable hair. This is because the bristles are capable of absorbing lots of paint. However, the bristles are far thinner than hog hair and taper into a fine tip. While this makes them brilliant for detail-orientated work, they aren’t the best hair type for covering large areas. Their versatile nature means you’ll be able to use your sable hair paint brushes with oils, watercolours and acrylics.
Synthetic hair
An animal-free option for those who aren’t comfortable with using traditional bristles, synthetic brushes can be equally brilliant tools for oil painting. Often as coarse as hog hair bristles, synthetic hair can hold and distribute oil paints brilliantly.
What are all the different brush shapes and their uses?
- Round brushes: the most familiar type of brush you’ll come across. Available in a variety of sizes, round brushes are great for covering both large areas and getting into finer details.
- Flat brushes: these brushes create long, straight lines and sharp angles. They can be used to block out highlights and shadows with the utmost ease.
- Filbert brushes: a hybrid of the round and flat brush, filbert brushes have a semi-almond shape which produces softer brush strokes – making them a fantastic blending tool.
- Angled brushes: designed to give you more control over those smaller areas, angled brushes can also be used to add interesting shapes and layers to your artwork.
- Fan brush: another brilliant blending tool, fan brushes can also be used to add interesting textures to your piece – especially when it comes to painting foliage, greenery or waves.
- Bright brushes: essentially a flat brush with an inch or two cut off the top, bright brushes allow you to block colour without accidentally blending it.
- Rigger/detailer brushes: these detail-oriented, thin-bristled, short brushes often have more ergonomic handles, making it easier for artists to paint with more precision.
- Liner brushes: not to be confused with rigger or detailer brushes, liner brushes have thin and long bristles. This means you won’t be able to paint with immense precision, but you will be able to create delicate, flowing brushstrokes.
Without further ado, we’ve rounded up a selection of the best brushes and starter brush sets for oil painting. Shop our top picks below.
Daler Rowney Georgian Skyflow Bright Brushes
Named the Skyflow Brushes for a reason, these broad, boar bristle brushes are the perfect tool for filling large areas of your canvas in one fell swoop. Due to their size and the quality of Chinese Chungking bristles, these brushes don’t come cheap – priced at just under £20 for one brush.
Durable and long-lasting, you’ll nevertheless find that just one of these brushes – available in two, two and-a half, and three inches – will remain a go-to in your painter’s pot for a number of years before they need replacing.
Buy now £18.95, Cass Art
Hazel Soan's Oil Brush Set
A five-piece set curated for SAA by artist Hazel Soan, this set includes SAA bristle round 4 & 10, flat 4 and 16, filbert, 8, a synthetic round 4 for detailing, a palette knife, as well as a SAA long brush case. A brilliant capsule collection for travelling or taking to art classes, this set contains one of each of the most popular brush shapes for high-quality studies and smaller paintings.
Buy now £31.52, SAA
Fuumuui Oil Paint Brushes
Crafted from Chungking Hog Bristle, this value-for-money set of 11 long-handle brushes is a fantastic kit for artists who tend not to switch between bristle types for a uniform approach. Contains fan size 6, flat size 2, round sizes 3, 7, 9, 11, and filbert sizes 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12, so there won’t be much you can’t do with this kit. We love how the long, flat brush has a tapered handle for more precise brush strokes.
Buy now £23.99, Amazon
Gerstaecker Bristle Brush Roll
Housed in a traditional artist’s brush roll, you’ll certainly get some bang for your buck with this 18-piece set from Gerstaecker. The roll has 12 individual brush pockets and features nine round brushes and nine flat brushes in sizes 1 through 8 and 10. We love the long-handled, simple design of these brushes and can imagine popping them in our backpacks wherever we go.
Buy now £14.95, Great Art
Raphaël Series 3630 Oléo Flat Brushes, Short Bristled
In our humble opinion, short and flat bright brushes are one of the most underrated brush types for oil painters. Designed to block out colour with ease and without accidental blending, they are an invaluable tool to have in your painter’s kit. These Series 3630 by Raphaël hold colour like no other brush and are available in various sizes via Great Art.
Buy now £3.59, Great Art
da Vinci Red Sable Filbert Oil Brushes Series1815
These distinctly almond-shaped, ultra-soft Series1815 sable brushes by da Vinci apply and blend oil paints with ease. Available in a vast range of sizes, the extra-large brushes will cost upwards of £200 due to the quality of the genuine Kolinsky sable bristles. Our favourite all-rounder is the size 6, which is just £13.99.
Buy now £13.99, Great Art
Set Of 6 Sable Artist Brushes - 'The Oxford' Round Head Brush
Though traditionally used for watercolour and ink-based artwork, these long-bristled sable brushes from The Fine Art Warehouse are beloved for their buttery-smooth application and dense bristles, which can hold copious amounts of paint.
Buy now £27.49, The Fine Art Warehouse
Professional Sable Hair Detail Paint Brush Set
These professional detail brushes will maintain their tapered tip for years to come thanks to the high-quality sable bristles. We’re big fans of the sleek, stylish and wonderfully practical triangular handle and the extra-long ferrule for adding precise touches with ease.
Buy now £12.99, Amazon
Mont Marte Premium Brush Wallet Set
Though technically a hybrid collection of synthetic and boar-bristled brushes, this 15-piece set has a majority of synthetic brushes. Despite the suspiciously low prices, Mont Marte (a nod to the historical art district in Paris) is a highly respected brand favoured by artists across the globe.
Suitable for watercolour, acrylic, oil, gouache and tempera painting, this set includes synthetic taklon brushes in liner 3/0, round size 1, filbert size 2, round size 3 and 6, filbert size 4 and 9, flat size 6 and 8, angled size 10 and wash size 11. The included boar bristle brushes are filbert size 8, flat size 10, fan size 4 and wide in 5/4 inches.
Buy now £28.99, Amazon
Cass Art Grey Synthetic Brushes for Acrylic and Oil Set of 8
At first glance, it’s difficult to tell that these rustic-looking brushes are in fact animal-free. Long-handled and long-bristled, this all-rounder set from Cass Art is offered at a wonderfully affordable price. It includes grey synthetic brushes in round size 0,3,5, bright size 2, flat size 4 and 8, filbert size 4 and fan size 4.
Buy now £29.95, Cass Art
