brush with the past

[In sff.net we got to talking about watercolor brushes, of all things.]


There's a family story behind that Series Seven brush, Dave.

When I was still in graduate school in the seventies, my mother handed me a circled ad in American Artist, asking if I'd like this for Christmas. I thought the ad was for a package of 200-lb. watercolor paper, which would be handy, so I said sure. But no, it was for a Windsor & Newton Series Seven watercolor brush, the absolute Rolls Royce of brushes.

A size 8, 7/32" in diameter, lists for $252.99 (though Dick Blick sells it for a mere $91.08), but it may last a lifetime or longer. A no-name size 8 might run you ten bucks and last a couple of months.

I'm still using that brush, forty years later. Some of the black paint on the handle has stripped off and I have to stick a piece of tape under the metal ferrule to keep it steady. But the hairs from the tails of those Russian foxes who died when Krushchev was premier still snap to a point and hold a respectable amount of paint.

You can't beat quality. You do have to pay for it, but sometimes it pays off.

(As a necessary footnote I should admit that I have professional artist friends who would rather throw themselves in front of a bread truck than pay a hundred bucks for a brush. I mean, get real. A brush starts to get fuzzy, you get a new one – and put the old one in the fuzzy-brush can, to use for feathering clouds and stuff. But I love that brush, and when I pick it up I touch my mother and her love for art, and her love for me.)

Joe