My first introduction to Asian brushes was through reading an instruction book by Ron Ranson, who painted with a hake. I found it very difficult to control, as it held a lot of water and I was relatively inexperienced back then, so I soon put it aside, never to be taken out again until maybe a year ago.
Since then, I have bought some round brushes made from goat hair, which give lovely random effects.
This has encouraged me to explore a wider range of Chinese brushes so I bought a set of three
weasel brushes from Jacksons. They come in a beautiful box and are really reasonably priced.
Unlike Western style brushes, these Chinese brushes need to be prepared for painting first, as they are coated in some protective substance which glues the hairs together. From the Jackson's blog I found out that they need to be soaked in warm to rinse the coating off.
I have tried this on my smallest brush and found it took a good five minutes (it definitely needs to be warm water, as the cold water hardly lifted any of the substance). Once I could ply the brush head, I knew the brush was ready.
I then tried it out on khadi paper (see photo below).
The brush on the top is the one I used for these marks.
For the blended green and purple washes, I used the belly of the brush on its side, which makes more random marks.
For the scribbles on the top right, I used the tip of the brush, lifting and pressing the body down to get different widths. The brush comes to a good point and can make really thin lines.
For the circles further down, I splayed the brushes' hairs first before putting it to paper. This way I could achieve fine multiple lines, which could be used to paint hair or fur, or to add texture to a wash.
So far, I am very happy with this brush and expect the others to be as good.
