Studio business - Brushes, brushes everywhere...

On an average landscape or wildlife, I'll use around 14 different brushes, but a no. 1 sable blend rigger from Rosemary & Co spends more time in my hand than any other. I use it for the individual leaves on trees/bushes/flowers, for grass, flower heads...in fact, just about everything! I use Rosemary & Co brushes almost exclusively on my landscape paintings, as they provide the consistency that only a top quality brush can give you, especially important for fine detail.

However...when working on my still-life, the opposite attributes hold fast. I very often use the most dog-eared bristle brush that I can find (and I have plenty of them), load them with paint and enjoy myself. I have a collection of 40-50 large and small bristle brushes, of no particular make, that are in various stages of knackeredness, which are used regularly. It is surprising how quickly a bristle brush wears down on a medium grain canvas and you can lose a couple of millimetres off of a brush in a single painting, so it doesn't take long to wear in a new one.