Brushes, The Good the Bad & the Ugly

I think your brushes are your most important tools. A good brush is a real treasure. I know they sell all kinds of brushes at very cheap prices. But in this case the old saying "you pay for what you get ,and you get what you pay for" really comes into play here.
The cheap price is not always a good deal. A cheap brush can cause you nothing but grief and frustration and take all the fun out of your hobby.

Those nice fluffy brushes won't do the trick. Those are called mops and they are intended to do just that, mop.

What your looking for are nice Golden Taklon brushes that look like this. They have a nice springy bristle and they hold up well when your working your brush back and forth to side load your paint. I prefer Loew Cornell 7000 series brushes. They do cost a little more usually in the $5.00 to $6.00 range. So what you have to do is shop smart. Break out those Sunday Papers and use those coupons. Michael's will except AC Moore coupons or vice versa also they except Joann's coupons. And remember you don't need a million brushes. All you'll need are the very basic sizes of a #2 , #4, #6 square shader that you see here with the black handle.

You'll need a 10/0 liner brush LC7050 this is what I like to use for all my small detail work. And that's it, you can paint anything you want with those four brushes.

Now I'm not going to tell you these brushes won't wear out because they do, when they start to look like this...

you'll want to throw them out. STOP don't do that. They still serve a propose, no I'm not kidding. Now they will be used for dry brushing.
Now you need to know how to take care of those brushes so you'll be able to paint lots of different projects without a lot of hassles.
First thing I tell everyone when your painting you'll be tempted to leave a brush sit in the water basin. Or lay a brush down with paint still in the bristles, that's a Big No, No.

That's the two worst things you can do to your brushes. Why? Well if you leave it standing in water that will cause the bristles to bend so instead of nice straight bristles you'll have a nice C shaped bristled brush. Take it from me they don't even go around corners well ...LOL. Also the water will loosen the ferrule of the brush. I know your thinking what's a Ferrule? The ferrule is that shiny metal thingy that holds the bristles onto the wooden handle. So be sure to rinse the paint from your brushes as you use them and never ever ,ever leave them lay in water.
To clean my brushes I rinse them continuously as I'm working so paint doesn't have a chance to build up and dry around the ferrule aka that shinny metal thingy. When paint builds up around the ferrule and hardens it causes the bristles to separate and spread and that's no good.
So before I leave the table I pounce my brushes around in a small glass jar of alcohol that will remove any paint hiding up in there that will cause trouble later. Then I either leave the brushes laying flat on the table or stand them handle end down in a jar. And that's about it. Everyone has their own way of taking care of their brushes that works for them, with all the fancy cream cleaners and soaps. This just seems to work well for me and at a low cost. Besides the money you spend on those fancy soaps and cleaners you could use for more paint or brushes. Happy Painting.