1.0 THE ARTIST BRUSH RESOURCE GUIDE - da Vinci

1.5
VALUABLE INFORMATION ABOUT HAIR, BRISTLES AND SYNTHETIC FIBRES
A brush is as good as its hair, its bristles and, nowadays you may also say, its synthetic fibres.
How good a brush is, depends on how carefully the raw materials have been selected and
manufactured for their respective tasks.
Handling hog bristles and preparing hair from various animal tails, furs and ox ear, are operations
in which the experience of generations is involved.
Quality features and the proper use of technical terms may also cause difficulties. The most
expensive and most valuable soft brush hair, for example, is from the tail of ,,mustela sibirica",
a quality marten which lives in the valleys of the Siberian rivers Amur, Tobol and Ussuri. In the
technical language of brush-making it is called „Tobolsky“ or „Kolinsky“ red sable. The decisive
point is that this hair is taken from male winter tails. Hair of other species of marten such as the
Asiatic weasel or the hair of the female animals which is also of golden-red colour, but not as fine
and as springy, is traded on the world market at about half the price. The brush-making industry
has traditionally manufactured all of them under the collective term ,,red sable hair".
Unfortunately the purity regulations are abused more and more. Often the quality term „Kolinsky“
is also used freely when simple red sable hair has been taken. You can be sure with
Kolinsky red sable brushes that the name keeps its promise.
Hairs and bristles are similar in their structure. They consist of a central medulla around which
scales are grouped like a shell. The elasticity and the „interlocking quality“ of a brush depend
on the nature of these scales. If you leave a brush in the water too long or if it cannot dry properly,
this shell of scales opens up like a fir-cone. You feel that it has lost some of its spring and colourholding
capacity. After thorough cleaning with pure soap and intensive drying, the brush has
been brought back to its original shape. The scales close tight onto the medulla, the hair and
bristles have regained their original spring and the brush is a perfect tool again.
There are differences between hair and bristles:
The expression „natural hair“ is used for diametres up to 0.15 mm, the definition ,,natural bristle"
for diametres from 0.20 mm to 0.30 mm. This is true also for synthetic hair and bristles. The natural
bristle ends in „flags“, i.e. the tip has several ends, whereas the hair has only one more or less
fine end, depending on the kind of hair you have.
Bristle has extraordinary spring. A rolled hog bristle was used as a balance spring in the first
pocket watch. Hair is soft and elastic at the same time. The expert tests the elasticity at the spot
where the hair comes out of the ferrule with a „snap test“ at his ear.
It was Leonardo da Vinci who detected the capillary motion about 1500. This is the phenomenon
of the rising of liquids in narrow hollows. This knowledge has always been utilized by good brushmakers,
above all for the production of water colour brushes. We make hair compositions -
whether of red sable, black sable, squirrel or ox hair - which give each brush a maximum colour
absorbing capacity and flowing ability.
But natural hair gets more and more precious each year and it is necessary to accept the
challenge to our generation to protect and preserve the natural resources. That is the reason why
we developed an alternative to brushes made of natural hair by using new compositions either
of pure synthetic fibres or of synthetic and natural hair together, so that you only have to choose
brushes with natural hair as they relate to your indiviual technique. The following information is
the summing up of intensive product research during the last four decades, in which we progressed
always by the recent development in the production of synthetic fibres.

1.6
Today we use a large number of synthetic fibres of different diametres, whose tips taper out
extremely fine like needles. We use these new fibres the same way as for the production of
brushes of natural hair in order to perfect our assortment of products. The high stability and the
extraordinary spring of the new synthetics are particular characteristics most prized by our brush
makers today. These superior qualities in synthetic fibres permit new combinations of fibres and
new techniques of production. The result are synthetic water colour brushes having an aura
around the brush tip which is not inferior to that of red sable.
The inimitable „inner life“ of a true red sable brush will remain a secret for the synthetic brush.
Based on Leonardo's discovery - to absorb and conduct a lot of liquid, we found it necessary
to solve this problem by developing compostions of natural hair and synthetic fibres. It was
necessary to „mix” the traditional hair like sable, squirrel and ox hair, which are used particularly
for the production of water colour brushes, with extremely soft fibres which have very fine tips,
in a way that the painting of longer sequences without interruption is also possible in perfection
with a synthetic - natural hair brush. During this course of developments we were advised by
known water colourists.
And this is the chronicle of this product range:
1965 with the introduction of the acrylic colour we placed at the disposal of amateurs and
artists the -MAESTRO-ACRYLIC-brush. These brushes made with interlocking
effect had already and at that time an unexpected good spring permitting an equal colour
distribution.
1976 the -NOVA brush is presented, first with white and later with golden coloured
hair and from the beginning with a fir-green handle. Today this is certainly the
universal brush for tempera and water colour, for oil, acrylic colour and hobby techniques.
(series 18 - 122 - 1370 - 1375 - 1570 - 1670 - 1870 - 1875)
1984 the -NOVA-MIXED, series 1572, is put on the market and is appreciated by
amateurs and artists as a cheaper alternative to the red sable brush, due to the high
effect of capillarity.
1990 the -COSMOTOP-SPIN enlarges the great water colour tradition of our house
with the pure fibre brush series 5580 and 5584 pointed and in oval shape.
1991 the -COSMOTOP-MIX, series 5530, significant by its blue transparent lacquered
esagonal handle, made of a composition of the classical natural hairs combined with a
special synthetic fibre, has become a treasured, economic water colour brush - above
all in the large numbers - during more than a decade.
1992 the -TOP-ACRYL enlarges our assortment in the fibre brush range
1997 after a longer testing period introduces the -JUNIOR,
the first fully synthetic school painting brush - first in ROUND (series 303) and the following
year in FLAT (series 304)
2000 the Paint-Finger, the colourful great fun brush comes out.
As ideal aid in developing hand to eye coordination skills in young children and encouraging
creativity it gets very popular in kindergardens and for ergotherapy.
2001 -FORTE with its robust fibre quality complements our brush assortment for
leisure artists that are used to work with thicker colours on rough surfaces.
2002 -PRIMO - the brush for the youngest beginners, developed on the basis of
the very successful -JUNIOR, is welcomed unanimously by experts.
2003 -IMPASTO has been developed as the flexible “painting knife-brush”.
Flats, rounds and mottlers (series 7105, 7705, 5025) are ideal for these demands.