New Brushes

I'm struggling with my painting outdoors because many of my most-used plein air brushes are dead.

These are mostly brights.  

Small square brushes. They are my favorites.

They are totally dead.

Usually it is a good rule to use larger brushes, and I do, but I also find that I really do need smaller brushes for architecture stuff, and I'm usually working pretty small.

My small brushes seem to wear out much faster than my larger brushes.

I got 16 new brushes today at Blick, just enough of each to get the bulk discount.

Bulk discounts are great, and I'm painting enough these days that it makes the most sense.

The ones on the left- the black handles with the colored stripes- are Utrecht brand.  I really like them but they don't last long, unfortunately.

The middle ones are a Blick line I haven't tried before.

The blue ones are Princetons, and they are a recurring favorite.

My other favorite are the Simply Simmons synthetics 9in the top picture), but I can only seem to find them online.  They are inexpensive and hold up well,

Maybe one day I'll get some small Rosemary Ivories and see how they hold up.

Rosemary Brushes are the best and the ones I have and use have help up for a really long time.

So maybe their small brushes will also hold up ok.

I hope these last me at least through the Fall!

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Thor Wickstrom uses liquin.

Michael Chamberlain uses liquin.

Ken Goshen uses liquin.

Stapleton Kearns uses liquin.

David Nakabayashi uses liquin.

I have not really used liquin since college. (And I used a lot of it back then!)

I like gel mediums in-studio, or a mix of oil and solvent, and for plein air I don't use anything.

When I do, I regret it because the paint gets too slippery and I can't layer.

But Thor said David uses a lot of liquin for plein air, so I asked him about it last night.

Liquin is a drier but it takes about 24 hours.

But David says it sets up while he is painting.

That's pretty interesting so I also got some fresh liquin to take out painting. I want to give it a try since everyone else seems to be able to use it effectively.

Worst thing that happens is I hate it outdoors, but I can still always use it in-studio.

There must be something to it, though.