One Stroke Brushes

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One-stroke brushes were designed for the 'One-stroke' painting technique taught in the Schools of Art of the 17 and 1800's, at that time it is known that some Schools of Art made their own brushes. As brush manufacturing and other things developed in the UK the Schools became busy and they appointed brush manufactures to make their brushes.

Since then the main brush manufactures have maintained a supply of this type of brush, but these days they are not always suitable for use with oil paint. Some of the main requirements of these brushes were that; they were made from a hard wearing filament that was soft and flexible; they had a longer length of hair between the ferrule and tip; they also needed to hold the weight of the oil paint. The usual filament was Sable.

Brushes are an important tool for expressing skill. Therefore it pays to buy the best available for the media and technique you are using.

These brushes have been crafted and designed to fulfil the requirements for 'one-stroke' painting with oils, although they are suitable for use with other media. The brush head for the two flat one-stroke brushes is a mix of sable and synthetic filaments, this makes them soft, flexible and with good 'spring'. They have a long length of filament, longer than most flat brushes of this type. The mix of sable and synthetic makes them hard wearing and strong enough to carry the weight of the oil paint.

One of the reasons for the longer length of filament is to facilitate the loading of the brush. The ruination of any brush is paint in the ferrule. The dried paint forces the filaments apart, this in turn prevents the brush coming back to it's normal shape, be it round or flat. (see brush cleaning) The longer length allows for greater carrying capacity when loading the brush, without the paint penetrating the ferrule. It also offers greater flexibility when applying the paint.

The mix of filament allows for less natural hair (a by-product of other trades) to be used, the synthetic filament used was designed by the company who makes these brushes and is superior to most on the market today. This imitation and natural sable mix is ideal as it gives to the brush head all the needed requirements, flexibility, strength and spring.

The seasoned hardwood handles are made from wood of managed renewable sources and are coated in black lacquer, then over printed. The weight and length of the handle was chosen to give the correct balance to the brush, making it comfortable and easy to use.

The round brush is pure sable, which is still superior to a mix, it has good carrying capacity, excellent spring and delivers clean strokes with oils. The rigger is all synthetic which makes it very hard wearing, it comes to a very fine point with a long length of filament.

These brushes have been tried and tested by many artists, both professional and pleasure painters, all have found them excellent value, easy to use and outstanding performance.

For the equivalent brush in the Pro Arte (the people who made these brushes for me) range choose the Series 99 Connoisseur One Stroke or Series 100 for Round brushes.

Brush components.

The tip of the filaments is referred to as the 'point' on a round brush and the 'chisel' end on a flat brush.

The hairs and filaments form the brush head.

The metal area that holds the filaments and the brush handle is the ferrule. This is seamless nickel plated and made to the requirements of each individual brush. The filament is inserted and glued in the ferrule, the ferrule and brush head are then glued and 'crimped' to the lacquered, hardwood handle.

Lacquered hardwood handle.

We have a good selection of One Stroke brushes which can be found in our online shop
at J and T's Art and Calligraphy

Brush cleaning types of brushes