Have Brush, Will Travel

Watercolour brushes are important in getting the best out of your Watercolour Paints. So, when you are travelling or simply out and about doing a spot of Plein Air painting, why should the brushes you use be any less in quality than you would use in the studio? Here we look at 5 brush sets designed not only to be compact and practical travellers but offer great quality brushes as well.

Royal Talens Rembrandt Sable Travel Set

The Royal Talens Rembrandt Travel Sable Brush Set offers great value. The brushes are Sable with a gold coloured ferrule and laquered black handle and can be used as half length brushes or placed in the handy extender to provide better grip and balance.

To keep the cost down, the three brushes – a round, a filbert and a flat – are a fairly small size 4 and there is no specific travel case although the sturdy card box could be re-used. The miniature nature of the brushes, though, means that they would fit into a small space in a pochard or carry case.

Winsor & Newton Artists Sable Set (656)

Winsor & Newton’s Artist Sable brushes are a tried and tested favourite for Watercolour and appear in a number of useful sets. Whilst the brushes in this 4 Sable Brush Travel Set have not been modified for travel, they have been presented in a robust fabric case with a perspex window and a substantial, all-weather strap for attaching to a bag or belt.

The Set contains 4 brushes made from good quality Sable. Two small rounds. a quarter inch flat and a rigger give an excellent choice of mark-making for small, detailed Watercolour sketches.

Pro Arte Prolene Plus Leather Wallet Travel Set

The Pro Arte Prolene Plus Retractable Brush Set comes in a Leather Wallet. Pro Arte lead the way in synthetic Watercolour Brushes with their Prolene Plus range. Prolene Plus successfully mimics some of the sought-after natural characteristics of Sable such as good spring and great water-carrying properties but its strength allows it to be used for oil and acrylic too. Being synthetic, this Pro Arte Retractable Brush Set offers larger sizes – size 10 in a round, a filbert and a flat – without adding to the cost.

The beautiful brown leather case and gold-coloured ‘cigar-case’ brush protectors that double as handles for the brush heads add an air of sophistication and style.

Da Vinci Cosmatop Spin 1573

Another synthetic option is the Da Vinci Cosmatop Spin 1573 set. Offering three brushes in sizes 10, 6 and 4 presented in a hard black leather case, the differing lengths and diameters of the fibres closely mimic natural hair and, like the Prolene Plus, will withstand use with other media such as inks, thinned acrylic and thinned oil.

The Brush heads are screwed down inside the sturdy, black plastic barrels whilst in transit keeping them very well protected and are screwed onto the end of the barrel ready for use.

Da Vinci Kolinsky Sable 1503

The Da Vinci 1503 Set uses the same brush design as the 1573 allowing the brush head to be protected in the plastic barrel but this set offers a very high quality Kolinsky Sable hair which is sure to make the Watercolourist very happy.

The three brushes are, again, in sizes 10, 6 and 4 – a rather generous size selection for a Sable Brush Set – and presented in Da Vinci’s practicle, embossed leather wallet.