Types of Oil Painting Brushes: Paint Brush Shapes and What is the Difference between Sable, Hog and Synthetic

Happily, figuring out what type of brush is your kind of brush is a lot easier than figuring out what type of medium is best suited to you. Today I want to give a quick break down of the most common brushes, different types of bristles, and why I think everyone should go synthetic. My next post will cover brush brands and which brushes I think a beginner should start with.

Brush Types

• Round: pointed tip, long and closely arranged bristles. Good for details.

• Flat: flat, long bristles. Good for spreading paint quickly and evenly over a surface. A dry, clean, standard flat is also excellent for blending. 

• Bright: flat, short bristles. Good for scrubbing paint into the weave of a canvas in thinner paint applications, but also ideal for thicker impasto work. 

• Filbert: flat, round tipped bristles. Good for general coverage and some detail work, ideal for creating soft edges. 

• Fan: flat, fanned bristles. Good for blending broad areas of paint, or knocking down paint ridges (I actually prefer a mop brush for this. I feel like it does the same job with less mess.)

• Angle: flat, with bristles cut at an angle. Good for general application as well as detail work. I don't love using these.

• Mop: large, round bristles. Good for blending board areas of paint, and as they are usually very soft, the paint is not overly lifted. Also good for applying larger glazes. 

• Rigger (also known as a Script or Liner): long, round bristles that come to a sharp point. Good for fine lines and details, and although they are normally marketed as a watercolor brush, they work equally well with oils. 

If you are interested in doing a deep dive into the history of paint brushes and/or reading more about brushes in general, here some articles from Dick Blick on fibers, brush types, and the history of the paint brush.

Bristle Hair Type: Natural Sable, Hog Bristles, or Synthetic 

The material used to form the body of the brush determines both the performance and the price of the brush. 

Natural Sable, soft hair brushes

• Bristles are extremely soft and made from animal hair. Usually not used for the first layers of a painting, but instead for the second or third layer of paint, glazing, or detail work. They have a long life and maintain their shape even when loaded with heavy paint.  

  • The most expensive sable is the Kolinsky sable, and is made from a mink found in Siberia and China. The best brushes are made of the hair of the male's tail, but only the hairs of his winter coat. Normally the mink is hunted for its tail, but there are some cases of them being raised in captivity, usually in poor conditions. In both cases they are killed. Any site saying that animals are not harmed in the making of these brushes is confused. In 2013 it became illegal to import these brushes and the US Fish and Wildlife started halting or seizing shipments of these brushes. Which feels like a good thing.  

  • They can also be made out of squirrel, pony, goat, mongoose (I use synthetic mongoose from a few different brands), or badger. You will also see a "camel" hair option, but it is not made from a camel. None of these bristle types are animal safe or animal loving options.

    
    

Hog Bristle, corse hair brushes

• Bristles are thicker, stiffer, and stronger than sable hair. Usually used for the first layers of paint as they easily hold a lot of paint and can take the abuse needed to get that first layer scrubbed into your support. They are great for heavy paint application or the spreading of paint.  

  • Hog hair is interesting in that each tip forks off into three micro tips. This allows the brush to hold a ridiculous amount of paint. 

  • Hog Bristles usually come from the ears of the pig, and yes, the pig is dead. I love to use hog bristle brushes, but I have stopped. The entire body of the pig is used when it is slaughtered for meat, and that includes hairs for making paint brushes; however, the way the animals are kept is wrong. You can learn more here. 

    
    

Synthetic, soft hair brushes - THESE BE MY JAM!

• Synthetics were not always awesome, it is true, but now if you know which ones to get (more on this in the next post) they are just as good as any natural hair brush. They are usually made of nylon or polyester (which I understand comes with its own environmental dilemmas, but for me, at least, animal cruelty wins out in this case).

  
  

  • Here are some reasons for going synthetic: 

    • They are less prone to damage from solvents, insects, or paints.   

    • They are easier to keep clean than animal hair, because the filaments don't have animal scale structures to trap paint. 

    • They are less prone to breakage and are more durable on various surfaces. 

So moral of the story, go synthetic! You can get almost any natural bristle as a synthetic these days, and it is awesome. I will be talking about different brush brands in my next post. What do you think? Is there a type of brush or bristle that you would have included? Let me know down in the comments.

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This is a rewrite of my original blog post, Types of Brushes: Shapes and Hog Bristle, Sable, or Synthetic