But is there a decent alternative to Kolinsky brushes?
There is a tendency for the fur business to make up names for fur, and in the US there are very strict laws preventing this. In the US all fur products which, as I read the regulation, includes brushes must be labeled with the country or origin and the animal named in conformance with standard names which are specified in the law. You cannot fudge on the name. This has not stopped brush makers. They do not label country of origin, and their names are quite imaginative. The Siberian weasel is not and has never been a “sable” which is an entirely different bigger and browner species of animal, and its fur is not red.
I used to think that the Siberian weasel, aka the Kolinsky, was an endangered species because there were several references to that status in the “fur” literature. It turns out, thanks to a comment of a reader, that there are plenty of Siberian weasels around in Asia, just none apparently on the Kola Peninsula. East of Finland, for which it was named.
For us the importance of the Siberian weasel, a.k.a. The Kolinsky, is that the tail hairs of the male collected from very cold climates in the winter are considered the very best hairs for brushes for watercolor . Brushes made with it command very, almost prohibitive, high prices orders of magnitude greater than other brushes. The tail hairs have a particular physical characteristic. They are thin at the ends and thicker in the middle. It is this peculiar double tapering structure of the hair that is said to contribute to its special characteristics that make it so valuable for watercolor. As I explain below the special characteristics are “pointing” and “snap”. This double taper is not unique in the animal world. For example, the Golden Mantled Ground Squirrel common in Canada and the Western United States has the same type of tail hair structure, but I know of no brushes uses this hair.
The idea of the superiority of Kolinsky brushes for everything in watercolor painting is actually a little irrational. To begin with there can be no one brush that is best for all watercolor work. The Chinese who invented both brushes and watercolor distinguish between two classes of brushes soft and hard with many different natural hairs in each category (the Kolinsky being in the hard category). They use both classes of brush depending upon the type of mark they wanted to make. The sign painters, who use brushes very similar to watercolor brushes including Kolinsky brushes, are also more differentiated when it comes to brushes. They use many different kinds of brushes.
Sign painters instead of saying that one type of brush is best talk about specific characteristics of brushes. They speak of :
1. pointing: a brush points if it comes to a very fine point at its tip. Squirrel hair brushes point as well as Kolinsky but lacks snap (see 2 below). A point is good for making a very thin line, getting into tight places, and starting a mark with a fine tip but by pushing the brush down as it is moves making a fatter mark like in the shape of certain leaves or blades of grass. In sign painting it is essential for “pin striping”.
2. snap: a brush has snap if after pressing it against paper so that its whole “footprint” is on the paper, it snaps back into its original state rather than flaps over limply. Ox hair, which comes from the ears of cattle or oxen — an oxen is an older steer, a steer is a castrated bull– has good snap but lacks a fine tip. A brush with snap can be used to make multiple marks without reshaping it by dipping it in water.
3. paint holding capacity. This is more a characteristic of the size of a brush, but squirrel mops do very well, better than Kolinskys.
4. Durability. The ability to stand up to wear.
In summary: squirrels point, Oxes snap, and Kolinskys do both.
So we are favoring kolinsky brushes over squirrel hair mostly because of their snap. I am not at all sure why I should pay hundreds of dollars for “snap”. Let me explain. I dip my brush in water, shake it, dip it in water color paint, and then make a mark. If I have been using a squirrel brush, after I am done making the mark, it is limp and tends to bend because I have been moving it along the paper. It bends away from the direction I’ve been moving it like a mop. In fact, it is often called a mop brush. So, when I am done, it can have an L shaped brush. I now dip it back in water and shake it. Lo and Behold it now regains its pointed shape. I would have to do the same set of behaviors with a kolinsky brush the way I paint. That is, after making a mark on the paper, even ‘though the kolinsky snaps back into shape, I have to dip it in water, shake and then dip into paint. So, it seems to me, I am paying big bucks for having a pointed brush for a second earlier than I would have with a squirrel brush. In fact, this highly desirable snap occurs when I am not using it to paint but merely to bring it back to the water supply and dip it in.
Something’s odd here. Kolinskys’ snap is only useful for me,on rare occasions when I want to make a lot of small precise marks quickly without going back for more water after each tiny mark. The example that comes to mind is making wave marks in water. I like to make smallish tapered marks, and there have to be lots of them. So I need a point at the beginning of each mark, but then I push down to make the mark wider. I then pull up a bit so that it end of the wave mark is pointed again. For efficiency purposes I need a brush with snap for that. The squirrel brush has the point and the ox hair has the snap, but only the Kolinsky has both. However, there are artificial fiber brushes that have both which you might consider for the rare times you are doing something like waves on water.
Granted the squirrel brush looks terribly limp after I make a mark or wash with it, and this is strangely disturbing and unattractive to some people. But it rejuvenates immediately. I believe there is something about the squirrel brush’s limpness that is unattractive to people, perhaps in a deep unconscious way. So, I ask you, is this limp look something to do with sexual performance anxiety? With, to be blunt, anxiety about impotence?
