Water Brush or traditional brushes?

[ingbranch]

I've been reading a lot about water brushes for watercolor painting. I myself have been using one but have neglected to use the traditional brushes. I'm a novice to watercolors and I'l like to know how other people feel about their water brushes. Do you like the way they feel compared to traditional? Do they make the same lines, effect? Which ones are the best fitting? And anything else you might have to add. Thank you.

[ethangeorgi]

I use a water brush when I'm on the move. I like that it consolidates everything and there are no spills. I use a real brush, with a container of water, and a paper towel, when I'm at home. The major difference between the two, in my opinion, is water control.

With a real brush you can be more precise about your pigment/water ratio. You have more control over how much paint is on your brush. With the water brushes, I find I either have too much water on the brush or not enough. It's hard to control the flow. (Which is "deep", if you know what I mean.) The inability to be very precise with the amount of water on the brush means you don't have as much control over the paint mixing on the paper.

Like I said, I use the water brushes when I'm on the move. I sacrifice accuracy for speed and convenience.

There may also be some issues with the material the brushes are made out of, but I'm not professional enough to know.

[gustavo]

Hi ingbranch,

I am in the same situation as yourself. I am a beginner with watercolor and so far I have only used the water brush (Niji) as my brush both in sketchcrawls / on the move and at home and have done small watercolors (3.5 x 5.5in Moleskin).

I was thinking maybe I should learn first to do watercolor sketches/paintings with regular brushes and then move to watercolor brushes... perhaps I am learning the hard way lol.

I had yet to use traditional brushes until yesterday when I tried them and also tried a much larger sheet of paper (9.5 x 12.5in)

At first I wanted to squish water out of the brush (habit), but as I progressed I found out that as Ethan mentions, I had more control and could really work on detail if I so wanted, I was able to make some thin lines.

It may be too early to tell though, I have also seen some really awesome work done with watercolor brushes.

[donnam]

I have been using waterbrushes (Pentel) until I took a sketching workshop that made us buy travel watercolor brushes. So I bought a da Vinci 1503 # 6 (Sable) at http://www.dakotabrushes.com/index_wc_t ... avinci.asp and use a 35 mm film canister for the water. I love it, rarely use my waterbrushes anymore.

[Donal]

I switched from a watercolor brush to regular brushes recently. I kept getting annoyed with the lack of paint it seemed to hold. I'd get drybrush too quickly and have to re-wet the brush just to blot in tree leaves.

Maybe I'll try it again once I get better at painting, period, but so far I'm not a fan of the waterbrush and cake paints. Too fussy for me.

[littleweaver]

When I am at home I use an Isabey 6 inch wash brush and a 1 inch flat brush for most of my work. That particular wash brush is pricey (Cheap Joe's has them for the cheapest I have ever found) but they hold a lot of water and pigment which lets you get nice flat washes, blooms, etc and so forth. I feel like I have more control with the water and the pigment with that brush. I use smaller regular brushes when I am on the go and carry either a bottle of water or a thermos of water with me because I want my sketchbooks to dry faster (mainly because I am usually just doing thumbnails for larger paintings when I get home).
I've used a water brush before, but didn't really care for it. I much prefer regular brushes, especially when I was first learning how to paint. I've been doing watercolors for about 11 years now and I never did really get to where I liked water brushes, but I have a friend who swears by them, so I really think it is more of a personal preference based on your painting style than that the brushes suck.