The short answer: worth it in the middle of the range, wasted at the top, and rarely the right first purchase.
Brush prices run from about a dollar to well over a hundred for a single brush. Almost all of the improvement happens in the first ten or fifteen dollars. After that you are paying for hand-graded natural hair and hand assembly, which matter enormously to a working watercolorist and hardly at all to someone filling in numbered sections.
What you are actually paying for
Four things, and only four.
- Shape retention. A good brush comes to a point when wet and returns to that point after every stroke. This is called snap or spring, and it is the whole game. A brush that will not come back to a point cannot put down a controlled edge no matter how steady your hand is.
- Ferrule construction. The metal collar should be seamless and crimped tight, so it does not rust, does not work loose, and does not let water into the glue. Cheap ferrules are rolled rather than seamless, and they are where cheap brushes fail first.
- Hair or filament quality. On natural-hair brushes this means graded hair with intact natural tips, arranged by hand. On synthetics it means the filament being tapered rather than a uniform cylinder — which is the thing that changed the market.
- Shaping. Expensive brushes are shaped by a person, so every one in the box behaves the same. In a cheap set of twelve, two will be good.
Nothing in that list is the handle, the branding or the number of brushes in the set.
Synthetic does not mean cheap any more
This is the part most articles on the subject get backwards, including the version of this one we are replacing.
Twenty years ago synthetic filament was a compromise: it held less paint, released it unevenly, and lost its point. That is no longer the case. Tapered synthetic filaments now hold a point and carry water well enough that many professional watercolorists have moved to them by choice, not by budget.
Princeton's Aqua Elite is the clearest example. It is marketed as a synthetic Kolinsky, it is entirely synthetic hair, and it competes directly with natural sable at a fraction of the price. Any statement that synthetic equals cheap is simply out of date.
Synthetics also have two genuine advantages over natural hair. They survive acrylic, which is hard on natural hair because of what it takes to clean it out. And they tolerate an isopropyl alcohol rescue soak, which sable does not.
Natural hair, described accurately
Natural hair is not one thing, and it is not simply the expensive option. Each type does a specific job.
- Hog bristle. Stiff, springy, with naturally split ends that hold a lot of paint. This is the oil painter's brush and it works well with heavy-bodied acrylic. The best of it comes from around Chongqing in China and is sold as Chungking bristle, and it is the stiffest and strongest hog bristle rather than the softest — a claim that gets repeated the wrong way round constantly.
- Sable. Fine, with excellent spring and a superb point. The watercolor standard. Confusingly, red sable comes from a weasel rather than an actual sable, and the finest grade, Kolinsky, comes from the Siberian weasel. The benchmark is Winsor and Newton's Series 7, a line that dates to 1866, when Queen Victoria asked them to make the finest watercolor brush they could in her preferred size, the number 7.
- Squirrel. The softest of the natural hairs, with very little snap and an enormous capacity for water. This is what mop and wash brushes are made of. It is the opposite of stiff, which is another thing the usual articles get backwards.
- Ox hair. Strong and springy, but the hair has no fine natural tip, so it goes into flat wash brushes and lettering brushes rather than detail rounds. Nothing to do with outdoor weather resistance.
- Badger. Bushy, with more hair at the tip than the base. Used in blending and softening brushes.
Natural bristle suits oil-based paint, varnish and enamel. Sable and squirrel suit watercolor and ink. Synthetic suits acrylic better than any of them.
Where cheap brushes genuinely fail
This part of the conventional wisdom holds up.
They shed. A loose ferrule releases bristles into wet paint, and picking one out of a section you just finished takes the section with it.
They splay. Untapered filament in a loose ferrule spreads within a few hours of use and never comes back to a point. Once that has happened the brush can fill an area and nothing else.
They are inconsistent. The real cost of a cheap twelve-piece set is that you cannot rely on any particular brush in it, so you end up using two and ignoring the rest.
What cheap brushes are genuinely good for: glue, gesso, varnish, masking fluid, stippling, anything you would rather not put a good brush through, and any job where the brush might get ruined. Every painter should own some bad brushes on purpose.
Where expensive is wasted
A hundred-dollar Kolinsky round is a superb tool for wet-in-wet watercolor, where the brush has to hold a large charge of water and release it evenly over a long stroke. Almost nothing else needs that.
If you are painting acrylic into printed sections, glazing, doing model or miniature work, or painting on wood or glass, a good synthetic at a tenth of the price will do the job as well or better, and will survive the cleaning regime.
The one purchase we would call reliably worth it: a single good fine round, in a small size, kept for detail work and cleaned properly. That one brush changes more about how a painting looks than a full expensive set.
What should a beginner buy?
Not the expensive set, despite what the version of this article we replaced said.
Two reasons. The first is that a beginner has not yet developed the cleaning habits that keep a good brush alive, and learning them on a five-dollar brush is a great deal cheaper than learning them on a fifty-dollar one. The second is that you do not yet know what you like painting, and brush choice follows medium and subject. Buying a professional watercolor set before you know whether you enjoy watercolor is the wrong order.
A sensible first purchase is a mid-range synthetic set from a known maker, plus one better fine round. Spend the difference on paint and canvas, which you will use up.
Making them last, which matters more than what they cost
A cared-for cheap brush outlasts a neglected expensive one, so this is where the actual saving is. Our full routine is in the guide to cleaning fine tip brushes. The four rules that matter most:
- Never let paint dry in the brush, and never leave it standing on its tip in the water jar. Those two account for most ruined brushes.
- Lukewarm water, never hot. Heat softens the adhesive in the ferrule and the brush starts shedding.
- Wash the base of the bristles, not just the tip. Paint built up against the ferrule is what bends the hairs out of line.
- Reshape the wet tip with your fingers and store the brush flat or bristles up.
One correction on storage. The plastic sleeve a brush arrives in is shipping protection, and it is fine for a brush that is completely dry. Putting a damp brush back into a sealed sleeve traps the moisture against the ferrule, which is how you get mildew and a loosened crimp. Dry first, sleeve after.
And use the brush for what it is for. An oil brush pressed into watercolor service, or a good sable used to scrub masking fluid, will not survive the experience.
What comes with our kits
To be straightforward about it: we make paint by numbers kits and we do not sell brushes separately.
Every kit includes brushes in a range of sizes with wooden handles, and reviewers tell us plainly that they are better than the plastic-handled ones most kits ship with. Four reviewers also say they are too coarse for the finest sections, which is fair and worth knowing. If you like working on the small areas, one good fine round bought elsewhere is a worthwhile addition to any kit, ours included. Our beginners guide covers the rest of the setup.
Common questions
How much should I spend on a single good brush?
For acrylic or numbered work, ten to twenty dollars buys a brush that will do everything you need for years. For serious watercolor, the useful range extends much higher, and there is a real difference to feel.
Is a natural-hair brush better than synthetic?
Only for the mediums it was made for. For acrylic, synthetic is the better choice on performance as well as on price and durability.
Are big brush sets a false economy?
Usually. Twelve inconsistent brushes are worth less than three good ones. If a set is cheap enough that you would not mind wasting most of it, it is fine as a source of rough brushes.
Can I bring a splayed brush back?
Sometimes, if the splay came from dried paint at the base. Clean it out thoroughly, reshape the wet tip and dry it flat. If the splay came from being stood on its tip for weeks, it is finished.
Does the handle length matter?
Yes, and it is about distance rather than comfort. Long handles are for standing at an easel and seeing the whole canvas. Short handles are for close detail work at a table, which is what numbered painting is.
