A numbered canvas asks a brush to do two contradictory things: cover a broad flat region without streaks, and cut a clean line along a curved border a couple of millimeters wide. No single brush is good at both, which is why kits ship with several, and why knowing which to pick up saves more frustration than any other piece of equipment knowledge.
The four shapes, and what each is for
Round
A round brush comes to a point and holds a good quantity of paint. It is the most useful shape on a numbered canvas by a wide margin, because the belly fills a region and the tip works its border, so you are not swapping brushes every few seconds.
If you only ever use one brush, use a round. A medium round handles most of a canvas, and a small one handles most of the rest.
Flat
A flat brush has a squared, rectangular head. Laid down broadside it covers open areas quickly and evenly, which is what you want for skies, water and large blocks of foliage.
Knowing which brush to reach for is half of it. brush techniques for the detailed areas covers how to hold and load it once you have.
The more valuable use is the one people miss. Turned on its side, the narrow edge of a flat brush draws a finer, straighter line than any pointed brush can, because the edge is rigid where a point is not. Masts, twigs, fence wires, window frames and the line where a roof meets sky are all easier with a flat turned sideways than with a fine round.
Liner, also called a rigger or script brush
Long, thin, and pointed. The length is the whole idea: it holds far more paint than its width suggests, so it can pull a continuous thin line without running dry halfway. It was originally used for painting the rigging on ships, which is where the name comes from.
It is the specialist brush for long unbroken thin lines. It is not a general detail brush, because the long bristles flex and wander.
Spotter
A round with the hair cut very short. Less paint, far less flex, and much more control. This is the brush for the smallest marks on the canvas, the ones where a millimeter matters: the catchlight in an eye, the highlight on a nose, a single lit window.
Brush sizes, and why they run backwards
Sizes count up from 1 for larger brushes, and down through 0, 2/0, 3/0, 4/0 for progressively smaller ones. A 4/0 is much finer than a 1. There is no industry standard behind the numbers, so a size 1 from one maker may not match a size 1 from another. Judge by looking, not by the label.
Natural hair or synthetic
For a numbered kit the answer is synthetic, and the reasons are worth knowing because a lot of what circulates about this is wrong.
Synthetic filaments are nylon or polyester. Taklon is a common polyester type, dyed and heat-treated to soften it. Synthetics have a smooth surface with none of the microscopic scales animal hair has, so acrylic does not lodge in them and they wash out easily. They also hold their shape through repeated washing, which matters more than anything else over the length of a canvas.
Natural hair comes from sable, hog, squirrel, goat or pony. Worth knowing: brushes sold as camel hair contain no camel. It is a trade name for a blend, usually squirrel, goat or pony. Natural hair suits oils and watercolor, where its texture and absorbency are advantages.
Natural hair is a poor match for acrylic, but not for the reason usually given. Acrylic paint is not caustic and it will not burn a brush. The real problems are that acrylic dries hard inside the scaly structure of animal hair and is very hard to get out, and that natural hair swells and softens in water so it loses its point over a long session.
And to correct a claim that turns up in a lot of brush guides: painting with acrylics does not mean keeping your brush standing in water. That is the fastest way to ruin any brush of any kind. The bristles take a permanent bend, and the water swells the handle and lifts the lacquer at the ferrule. Rinse, dry on a towel, reshape, and lay the brush down. Our guide to cleaning paintbrushes covers the whole routine.
What makes a brush good enough
Three things, and none of them is price.
It comes to a point when wet. Wet the brush and flick it. If the bristles gather to a single point, it will cut a clean edge. If two or three strays stand out, they will drag a line of color outside every border you paint.
It springs back. Press the tip gently against your thumbnail and release. Good filament returns to shape immediately. Filament that stays bent will get worse with every wash.
It does not shed. A hair coming loose into a wet region has to be picked out, and picking it out takes some of the paint with it.
Handle comfort matters more than people expect on a project measured in weeks. A handle that rolls in your grip makes fine work harder than a cheap ferrule does.
What comes in a Ledgebay kit
Every kit arrives with brushes in a range of sizes, which covers a canvas from broad areas down to reasonably fine work. Our customers rate them well, and several have said they are noticeably better than the plastic ones they had used before. A few have also said they found them a little coarse for the very finest passages. Both are fair.
So the honest advice on buying extra is this: you probably do not need a set. If you paint a design with small detail in it, birds, eyes, lettering, distant windows, a single small spotter or a 3/0 round from an art shop costs very little and does the one thing the supplied brushes find hardest. Buy one, not fifteen. If it turns out you use it constantly, buy another.
There is more on keeping fine tips usable in our guide to cleaning fine tip brushes, and the working habits that keep a brush alive are in our nine paint by numbers tips.
When you are choosing your next canvas, the full range of designs is here, and Custom Paint by Numbers works from a photograph of your own.
