Watercolour Demonstration. Advanced Techniques with a New Invention. 

Thank you +Vicki Wood .

Thankyou Hodaya Louis look at my newer videos which show you how to make an even simpler device like this.

Thanks David Church. There's another video on my channel for making an even simpler device which works the same. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VLiFi31f_88.html

John Salmon d

Ulfberht van Fluffsen so you have fallen into the trap of looking for the elusive magic brush and probably spent a small fortune in the process. I have Da Vinci Maestro No 12 and 8 (These are my most expensive) but to be perfectly honest, I'm frightened to use them in case I ruin the fine sharp points. I feel more comfortable using my really cheap Royal Soft-Grip SG3000's Synthetic and "sable" (hardly any sable) which cost only £1.99 each. I have Jacksons squirrel mops which are supposed to be as good as Isabeys (the one with quill and wire to hold the hairs). These are good for skies and large washes. I have some Winsor and Newton Sable brushes they are OK-ish, nothing fancy but as you say limited by their size. Series 7 Too expensive for me. Personally, I would prefer to find a real good synthetic which would take some abuse, last a long while and be cheap to replace. I've been looking at the reviews for the Escoda Versatil range plus I've been hearing that brushes which use Toray White Synthetic fibre are very good. If you really want to read up on an expert opinion on watercolour brushes Bruce McEvoy at Handprint.com www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/brush1.html#types will tell you all you need to know and more. Personally I wish I'd never got on to the brush merry go round. I was even looking for speciality oriental brushes made from mouse whiskers which are incredibly expensive. Most real pro's that I know reduce their painting kit down to the bare minimum and only use three or four brushes which invariably are synthetics. This is something that I aim to do myself once I've worn out my current stock which I've accumulated over the years. Hope that helps. Good Luck.

Ulfberht van Fluffsen Another thought has just occurred to me, if the brush doesn't behave as you would like, it may not be the brush, it may be the paper. Once again a whole new set of variables which you may need to look at. Find a paper that you like and will stand up to how you treat it then think about the brushes you use. You could spend a lifetime looking for the right brush only to find it was the paper that was letting you down. :)

John Salmon What am I supposed to say? Wow. Thanks a bunch. No seriously, I'm just not able to express myself with typed words only. You see, all I so far have got is a small red sable size 2, a medium tobolsky-kollinsky Da Vinci series 11 size 6 (about 22€, that money!) and a Da Vinci quill brush that's made of "better" synthetic hair but it doesn't just partly hold water as long as the series 11. I really like quill brushes. The most horrible think to me is that the sables don't make anything similar to a point when dry, and especially the expensive one gets tenacious as it gets drier on the paper. I think I won't use them again until I can really clean them even though the hair in itself is pure bliss. What I need now is a big squirrel quill. But I fear that I can't get all those awesome brands like they're available in America. I literally listed all I can choose from, here in Germany where, by the way, the only good synthetics come from Da Vinci and still cost more than 10 €. I'll try to get a few or as close as possible to your recommendations as I can, at that price it can hardly hurt. And yeah, the series 7. Who buys that? If I look for white sable, Escoda, Jacksons, Rosemary, etc, nothing shows up in my reach. So no 'cheap' brushes for me I guess. Have you ever worked with Inktense pencils? If yes, does it ruin the brush faster than normal watercolor that's not ink? Can ink ruin your brush? Isn't that just water and pigment?

Ulfberht van Fluffsen Jacksons are a good supplier of brushes and at a good price too. They sell the Escoda Versatil which I will try next, they also do a white Toray fibre brush which I want to try. Jacksons own make of brushes will be made by a leading brush maker but I'm not sure who. I know their own watercolour is made by Sennelier which is an excellent make and very reasonably priced. I've never used inktense so can't comment on that but ink may contain shellac which over time could gum up the brush at the root of the hairs.

John Salmon I will never ever use an expensive brush again, I fear D: No seriously, everybody on the internet goes insane over kollinsky and I just can hardly imagine a synthetic to have the same gorgeous capacity of sable...though no brush is perfect. Is it reasonable to get a rigger / spotter, and how much money would you give away for a really big brush for washes? I'm sorry but I really have to take the opportunity, see, usually there's hardly any info from people I know I can trust...

TooleyPeter Thanks Peter.

NOLA Fjord how did it work ?

Always happy to hear viewers comments John but let me correct you, I do use clean water, I do use quality papers and the brushes I use are normally a synthetic sable mix although I do use DaVinci sables too. The trouble with sables (apart from the expense) is that when you paint daily like I do, the tip soon wears down. I find the synthetic sable mix equally as good and the tip lasts a good deal longer. I also use W&N artists quality pigments. The idea of the device was mainly for users who have trouble with gradations and need that little bit of extra control. I'd like to see how you could manage the two colour blend and the bubble gradations that I demonstrated using just a sable brush. As far as your comment on cost effectiveness is concerned, it is negligible. The instructions I give in my videos is free for people to make their own device. If you don't already have the materials lying about at home it will only cost pennies. Oh and you don't need electricity for it to work. It works by capillary action which is a natural scientific phenomena. Also the "Big end" of the brush as you call it is in fact the root of the brush and this is normally less wide than the the bulbous belly of the brush which is between the root and tip. Sable brushes can unload their paint slowly depending how much pressure you use when painting but when painting on a pre-wetted surface, sable will dump the paint onto the paper equally as fast as a synthetic or sable mixed fibre.

Sorry for slow reply ***** Yes you can use any bottle just so long as you make a good charging cradle and ensure you can maintain a vacuum in the bottle. Good Luck.

Hamster bottle sounds like an excellent idea; easily obtainable at a pet store and inexpensive;

+Christo Lourens Try it and let me know what happens :)