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Glorified Malcontent
pac
12 January 2009 @ 01:55 pm
SWEET JESUS (rosemary&co brush review)  
my brushes came today!!! DEAR LORD THEY'RE AWESOME!

holy crap! i love these brushes! I LOVE ROSEMARY AND HER ADORABLE ENGLISH STAFF!

seriously folks... if any of you do watercolor or whathaveyou, you know how expensive a good quality brush can be. $40 for a w&n series 7 #6 pointed round? fuck that! try $7 for the same damn brush at rosemary's. SEVEN FUCKING DOLLARS! GOOD LORD! even if you live near a dickblick or whatever, even if you have a 20% discount... it's STILL almost twice the price as hers! SHIPPED FROM EUROPE.

man. art supplies are really something i get excited about. and these people get it. handmade. every brush. hand made. shipped at reasonable rates. sold at prices that are criminally low, and yet the quality doesn't suffer one bit. one thing i always hated about most of the mail order discount art supply websites is they charge shipping by how much you spend. if i'm buying overpriced brushes already, i could spend $75+ on a few kolinsky brushes alone... and then get charged $13 for shipping on top of it! fuck that guys. fuck. that.

don't get me wrong. i love jerrys and dickblick and dan smith and asw... but as far as brushes go. none compare.

give this lady your business. i'm super cereal, guys. someone like this deserves our poor-artist money.

my next purchase down the line will an even BIGGER pointed round (#10 maybe), a small kolinsky spotter, and squirrel mop (the best for big washes in my opinion).

EDIT: i just want to add that i'm no grand expert on brushes. series 7 are great brushes to have... if you can afford it. it was only by the grace of student discounts combined with annual sales at local art stores that i was able to afford my isabeys. but having tried a number of brushes for myself, and then trying rosemary's... the differences, if any, are not noticeable. with watercolor brushes, it's my firm beliefe that a good brush is worth its weight in gold... but if you can get that same brush for less, from a company that cares about their product and listenes to their customers, why would you get it anywhere else? :)
( #3 designer; staedtler pen for size ref)
 

(test painting; #6 pointed round for watercolor painting,  #3 designer for inking)
 
 
I'm Feeling: ecstatic
 
19 broken bones | Jump into the mosh pit
 
( Post a new comment )
A smattering of distant applause[info]thornwolf on January 12th, 2009 08:43 pm (UTC)
Oh lord you're making me wanna get some. Those are GORGEOUS!
aziza[info]soupskin on January 12th, 2009 08:57 pm (UTC)
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

brush-envy-gasm!
EK[info]ilyat on January 12th, 2009 08:59 pm (UTC)
Woooahhh nice. Thanks for the rec.
[info]kesame on January 12th, 2009 09:10 pm (UTC)
bookmarked! thanks for the recommendation
bolt vanderhuge[info]omnilugia on January 12th, 2009 09:43 pm (UTC)
Of course watching you use it makes it look GORGEOUS
Def look into that. ;)
Rose: Bolt- peeek[info]pinkdino on January 12th, 2009 11:18 pm (UTC)
oh my gosh, that's awesome. I'll be sure to take note of this

and holy crap, your brush lines.



just wondering, what sort of ink do you use?
Glorified Malcontent[info]pac on January 12th, 2009 11:27 pm (UTC)
my ink's become a kind of cocktail of various acrylic inks.

i used to use speedball super pigmented acrylic ink, but for some reason they don't seem to be making it anymore. i've also been dumping samples of liquitex professional acrylic ink into the container ( http://www.dickblick.com/zz211/48/ ).

in short, pigmented acrylic ink :3

Edited at 2009-01-12 11:28 pm (UTC)
Keovi[info]keovi on January 12th, 2009 11:27 pm (UTC)
Oh man! I've been needing new sables, but the ones locally are just too expensive.

Is there a particular one from that site you'd recommend?

Thanks for posting!
Glorified Malcontent[info]pac on January 12th, 2009 11:52 pm (UTC)
what are you using them for?

i bought a #6 pointed round (series 33) pure kolinsky sable (left in the photo); and a #3 designer (series 22) pure kolinsky sable (right in the photo, and the brush i demoed.) that whole order came out to $20. if i had bought just the #6 at the local art store, i would have paid at least $40. even the lower end sable brushes run around $15 each.

for watercolor/ink painting, i like a #6 - #10 size pointed round. it holds a lot of fluid, but also keeps a nice point for details and tight areas. it's a nice size for when you're working around 9x12 or smaller.

the #3 designer i bought almost purely for inking. it's thinner and longer than its pointed round counterpart, but not quite as thin/long as a rigger.

if you're into watercolor, i do think a squirrel brush is worth getting. the great thing about them is eve their smallest size is huge. i have a 000 w&n squirrel mop (pretty much the smallest they come in), and it's much larger than my biggest kolinsky. it's a good way to get a good quality watercolor brush for less money.
Klandagi: klandagi sock puppet[info]klandagi on January 12th, 2009 11:59 pm (UTC)
That eye is awesome. Man I need to get some of those brushes.
blitzdrachen[info]blitzdrachen on January 13th, 2009 02:23 am (UTC)
ah, god. i don't know much about the specifics of brushes, but these sound really and GOT-DANG CHEAP-O

WOWEEE
Boatswain[info]boatswain on January 13th, 2009 05:18 am (UTC)
I was waiting for a post like this. You've convinced me. I'm getting them. :)
Chris Goodwin: lhooq[info]eselgeist on January 13th, 2009 06:05 am (UTC)
can you unlock this post or something so i can spread it around?
or can i just quote you? thanks for the heads up on this!
Glorified Malcontent[info]pac on January 13th, 2009 06:46 am (UTC)
sure! (flock is a reflex by now. i'll unlock it.)
lindsay: yaaay :D!!![info]fntm on January 13th, 2009 10:13 pm (UTC)
First, thank you for introducing me to Comic Tools. It's become an invaluable source of information. Second, thank you for writing about these brushes. ;__; I've been eagerly awaiting a review since you bought them, and I'm super excited that they finally arrived and are really that amazing. AND THIRD!!! thank you for answering Keovi's brush questions since I found the info very helpful as well. I just got my hands on some watercolors and I don't know crap about using them. 8D

Edited at 2009-01-13 10:14 pm (UTC)
Glorified Malcontent[info]pac on January 13th, 2009 10:45 pm (UTC)
you're welcome, your welcom and you're welcome :)

to be honest, i've never owned a series 7 brush, the supposedly best of the best watercolor brushes. i've used one, and frankly they're just as good as other brands. i've been using isabey brand kolinskey up til now and they're a charm! ironically, w&n also offers a DIFFERENT series of pure kolinskey for cheaper, both of which claim to be the best of the best. i am a big advocate of getting quality supplies when necessary, and watercolor brushes are definitely necessary. you can get by with cheaper brushes, but it really makes all the difference to have a nice quality brush. that being said though, i'm no great connoisseur of all that is watercolor. i think someone who's done it for decades could tell the difference between the top brands, and which is better than the other. but as someone who knows enough, i can't see any discernible difference between by isabeys and my rosemarys.

the long and short of it is, it's worth getting good brushes for watercolor... but it's better when someone like rosemary can offer that quality are decent starving-artists prices :) the icing on the cake is her business practices. how often are you able to talk directly to the person who made your materials, if you have a question or concern?


ps, if you want to know more about watercolor than you ever wanted to know, check out this site (if you haven't already): http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/
junkyard72[info]junkyard72 on January 16th, 2009 09:34 am (UTC)
Holy superfine control, bat man.
Kalamu: Mus: TS - Jesse[info]freudian_lisp on January 19th, 2009 06:15 am (UTC)
1 - I am now 30 bucks pooer if wealth is measured in money, however, if it's measured by the near-orgasmic feeling of using awesoem art supplies, I'm sure I'll be one of the richest

2 - I couldn't PM you yur chosen one for H2H since you put some kind of block on it, I'll do once you remove it!
Glorified Malcontent[info]pac on January 19th, 2009 06:50 am (UTC)
WUPS! i have this journal locked down so tight and for no good reason. fixed!