Brushes

I use mid-quality synthetic brushes. I do most of my work with mid-sized, approximately 5/8″ flat and slightly tapered (filbert) styles, plus somewhat smaller rounds. I’ve always got a couple of large-area brushes on hand, perhaps a 1″ and 1-1/2” in order to get lots of paint coverage and generally it’s best not to be fussy, so larger is better. I use a couple of smaller brushes for details, again both flats and rounds. I find it’s a good idea to have a number of brushes in similar sizes on hand: it’s a chore cleaning in the middle of a passage and I keep a good few brushes in play, typically one per colour group that I’m using.

There’s nothing wrong with using other types of brushes, for example, cheap bristle brushes if you find that you like the chunky effects, however be ready to pick out wayward hairs from your canvas. Should you have a yen to use some classic (and expensive) natural sable bushes, I’d keep them for the finer passages towards the end!

For cleaning and brush care, there are quite a few good reference websites:

Cleaning oil brushes: https://www.wikihow.com/Clean-Oil-Paint-Brushes

When I can, I use baby oil: https://www.wikihow.com/Clean-and-Store-Artist%27s-Oil-Brushes-With-Baby-Oil

(Don’t paint with baby oil though….it’s non drying…a little residue though, is not consequential.)

For cleaning water-mixable oils, I follow the same practice as for Acrylics:  :https://www.wikihow.com/Clean-Acrylic-Paint-Brushes