Oil Painting Brushes

Oil Painting Brushes

Hog hair or bristle brushes are good for oil painting especially when using heavy paint straight from the tube.

You can use sable, or synthetic mixed with sable or 100%synthetic. The sable and sable/synthetic mix will usually give a softer, smoother look to the applied paint, these are also useful for detail work.

Synthetic brushes, range from soft to bristle effect.

The brush shapes in general use for oils are: - Filbert, Bright, Flat, Fan, Round, and Rigger.

The effect you wish to create, dictates the choice of shape and filament. 

Reading from left to right the following hog bristle brushes are-             

        Fan      Bright     Round    Flat    Filbert

Brushes courtesy Daler Rowney

Fan - shaped like a fan and sometimes referred to as a fan blender. 

Bright - flat with short bristle.

Round - shaped like a bullet which comes to a blunt point. 

Flat - flat with long bristle.

Filbert - shaped like a filbert nut.