Blogging A to Z: K is for Kolinsky Sable Hair Brushes

As an artist, it's important that I have tools that optimize the creative process for me. All artists have their perferred tools, meia, processes and methods for creation. It's not unusual for an artist to have a favorite brush, pencil, type of paper/canvas, and on and on. Since most of my work is black and white, I usually use a mechanical pencil (.5mm lead) to do all of the preliminary work. For me, penciling is mostly about plotting more than design. I know some artists like to "finish" their penciled work to such a degree that they just copy over everything when they ink. My magic usually comes in more in the inking stage than the penciling stage. I use Speedball Super Black India Ink along with my Kolinsky Sable Hair brushes (Usually I use a number 3 brush - it gives a wide variety of lines and can be made into a nice point). There is some debate among artists (mostly in the comic book field but other artists that use penk and ink) as to whether using a brush or a pen is better. I use both but my prefered tool is the Kolinsky Sable Hair Brush (thus the title of my blog).

Of course, using brushes made from animal hair is not without controversy. Due to the nature of the Kolinsky Sable (actually the Siberian Weasel), they are not bred in captivity and are trapped in the wild for their fur. Yes, the weasel is killed in the process of making the brush, but as far as I can tell, pretty much all of the animal is used so it is not a case of the weasel being killed soley for it's tail fur and the body being left to rot. But as with all things, I'm sure that does happen in some cases. I do care about ethical treatment of animals so this will warrant some further attention on my part to ensure that the brushes I use were harvested responsibly and not part of a mass killing for tail fur (and they use the fur from the winter coat of the animal).

Having said all of that, Kolinsky Sable hair brushes are DAMN fine brushes and have out lasted and out performed all of my other brushes (and they are expensive as all get out). As you can imagine, using India ink on a brush tends to be very hard on them. Synthetic brushes just don't hold up as they tend to absorb the ink. Sables are very oily critters and this makes the fur suited for brushes as the oil in the fur repels the ink/paint and thus the brushes last longer. Of course, there is always the argument that do we really need to kill animals to turn them into brushes? Well, as long as they actually use the whole animal and are harvesting responsibly (i.e. not driving them into extinction) then I'm generally OK with it.

Ah, always the ethical quandry and probably more than you ever really needed to know about brushes, but such are the considerations I have to wrestle with (heh, are the cleaning solutions that I use and paints environmentally friendly?!?). Perhaps not the idea folks have of suffering for one's art but different strokes and all...