Watercolor Musings: Travel Materials for Painting - Brushes

Watercolor Musings: Travel Materials for Painting - Brushes: It's been too long since I started this set of blogs on travel materials. Time to finish it up! This post is just a small bit of information...

Travel Materials for Painting - Brushes

It's been too long since I started this set of blogs on travel materials. Time to finish it up! This post is just a small bit of information about the myriad of brushes available for travel, or paintabout, as I like to call it.

These are brushes made for travel- each has a cap that protects the bristles. The second brush from the right comes out by putting the cap on the end of the brush handle. That insures that the bristle is always protected. The other brushes require some care as you put them away. I usually wet the bristles, pull them together and then insert into the cap. If you do get some bristles going awry, you can straighten them right out by running under hot water. Not for long though but it does work quickly.

This set of brushes is protected by the masonite board behind them. A small piece of the material used to keep rugs from slipping does the same thing for the brushes. The wide rubberband keeps all the brushes secure. I can't claim credit for this idea. Brenda Swenson is the brains behind it and it is very effective.

These are sort of speciality brushes I use while traveling. The blue is a Niji waterbrush. You don't even need a container of water to paint. You just rinse the brush by squeezing fresh water out. The middle brush is a new one, a waterbrush that can be collapsed into 2 pieces. This one fits in my very small palette. To the right is one of the brush pens I prefer with water soluble ink. This one is a Pentel color brush and I also like the Kaimei and Kuretake. I prefer inks in sepia and black but many come in a range of colors. By the way, the waterbrushes can also be filled with ink or watercolor if you like.

Here's to many happy hours painting while traveling!