#pigmeat

I had recently gone to Bhaskar Art Supplies in Chitrakala Parishad, Bangalore and I initially went to get some colored pencils and ended up buying two new materials. Both are wonderful and I first want to talk about these paintbrushes since I absolutely love them!

They are these super long handle brushes by the brand Bianyo. Now I have seen this brand selling fairly inexpensive and sometimes cheap looking materials on Amazon.in. I’ve always been a little sceptical with these Chinese-make art supplies but I have noticed that there are a huge number of Chinese-origin watercolour brushes from Aliexpress doing the rounds on Instagram. A lot of water-colourists (especially the accounts of artists from Russia and other parts of Europe) have been raving about Chinese-made brushes that are sold under various brands on Aliexpress.

Now I initially eyed a nice set of brushes hanging in the display at Bhaskars and when I asked the sales girl to show me those brushes, she asked me to check these out instead. She said they were a big hit with the water-colourists and that it was a great deal on the number of brushes you get.

So in a pack you get 13 brushes. Yes 13. No, none are missing, they actually are a set of 13. This set comprises of sizes: 24, 22, 20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 0. I wouldn’t compare the sizes to traditional sizes as I find that the size zero isn’t as thin as traditional size zeros. Its more like a traditional size 2.

These brushes have super long handles. The package says that they are for acrylic, oil and watercolour paints. I can only imagine they brushes would be best suited for watercolour painting. 

The bristles are super plump, soft and holds a lot of water. Usually, long handle brushes are used for canvas/board painting so you don’t have to sit too close to the canvas/or have to peer in to paint. They also are preferred when laying down a sketch on canvas so you have some looseness with your strokes since you are meant to paint from a distance. I found that these paint brushes are wonderful for watercolours and the handles are excessively long for the job but I realised that it does add a nice weight to your strokes when you paint. I wouldn’t recommend these brushes for acrylic or oil painting simply because the bristles are too soft and would wear out too soon.

A good tip to keep in mind is that when you are shopping for brushes always buy the ones with the plastic tips on, and make sure you keep them safe and never lose them! These are the most important parts to keeping your bristles nice and sharp!

Now onto the brush. The brushes come with the bristles all glued together (as usual). They do this with a gum arabic or similar solution, which washes off when the new brush is cleaned in water. Once they are free of this binder, they are super soft to the touch, the tips are nice and sharp and no stray hairs in sight! The bigger brushes seem to be bigger in fatness rather than in length which is what I prefer. The bigger brushes can hold huge amounts of paint, but I fear the thick handles might make them a little cumbersome to use too often. The finer brushes are superb for detailing. Keep in mind that these are ideal ‘studio’ brushes. Their handles are so ridiculously long that they cannot be easily carried on an outing. Crafty artists out there might want to consider sawing off the handles :D. The handle itself feels nice and solid and has a beautiful wood finish which shocked me since almost all cheap brushes have a coat of thick opaque paint in some boring color. 

The brushes have a nice spring when painted with and honestly are amazing to work with.

These 3 brushes were used for a bunch of paintings that I worked on last night and they have still managed to keep their shape! 

Below are some GIFS of the brushes in use: have a look at how nice are they are to paint with )