Tony Pro, as well as other prominent artists including Richard Schmid, Jeremy Lipking, Nancy Guzik, Morgan Weistling, and Michael Klein, have long kept Royal & Langnickel's long, flat, sables in their quiver of brushes. These brushes, the series 5590, offer a distinctive calligraphy in their stroke which has been prized by many oil painters, but as one successful artist put it, "they are probably the worst brushes out there." Despite the problems artists report with the Langnickels (mostly the errant hairs they are forced to pick from their canvas), no other brush could do what they do, so the brushes have remained in everyone's arsenal.
Pro has recently reported, however, that he, Lipking, and Weistling have found a substitute brush which holds up much better than the Langnickel 5590. All three have switched to brushes made by Rosemary & Co., a small, family-run business located in Great Britain, where all the work is still done by hand. Rosemary's series 279, which is a long, flat, Mongoose hair brush, seems to be the closest to the Langnickel 5590, though Pro also uses and recommends the company's Mongoose brights and filberts.
I have already ordered several of the series 279, and I will share my thoughts on those brushes when they arrive. It would be wonderful if artists could have a personal relationship with a master brush-maker again, like many painters once had a century ago.
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16 comments:
Thanks for the nice words Matt!
I will definitely try these brushes. Thanks for the tip!
Tony- I hope I did not misrepresent you with any of the liberties I took in writing this little post.
I had seen Rosemary's ads in the back of a couple of art magazines, and was curious about her brushes. I can't wait 'til they show up!
Sarah- Let me know how you like the brushes!
I'm obsessed with finding the perfect brushes.. I'm like Goldilocks looking for the right porridge. I'll have to look out for these.
As I live in the UK I've been using Rosemary & Co for years. Only started using their mongoose range about 6 months ago and really like them. Interesting to read some of my fave artists are using them too.
I have something to say that might start a controversy. It seems like alot of time and money is spent on materials in the hope that somehow it makes a persons artwork better.
I have played guitar now for almost 25 years and I am quite proficient. When I first started playing I wanted to sound like Eddie Van Halen. I bought the same picks the same strings (that I used to boil in water as he did to make them expand) As well as guitar equipment such as effect pedals and amps and even guitars.
Even though I was completely equiped to play, I didn't sound like him at all. One day I realized it had much less to do with my materials as it did my actual playing.
That is when it dawned on me...If Eddie and I were in the same room together and I had the best equipment and he had a guitar with a warped neck and missing 3 strings he could most likely make better music than me.
Why? Because he knew how to make music his way and I never learned to make music my way.
After that realization, I never ivested more than what my skill permitted and I saved a ton of money along the way. The best part...I can jam out now and I mean jam.
When I began to pursue the visual arts I went in head first and started buying materials and remembered the lesson I learned years before and it sobered me.
I can buy the best materials and pigments but if Jeremy Lipking or Tony Pro and I were in a room and they were equiped with the worst materials and I had the best...they would still make better pictures.
What is my point? Simply this we have to remember that there was a time when certain brushes didnt exsist and pictures still had to be created and our deepest reliance should be upon our ability to create visual music.
I do agree that artist and material makers should have a very communicative relationship.
Last but not least, with all that said, I have 4 Royal Langnickel 5590 brushes and I just used them for the first time last night and I love them.
And yes I bought them because Tony Pro and Jeremy Lipking recomended them. (Whispering)...Guess what I cant paint like them.
I guess I'll have to invest more into myself and how well I can use materials I feel comfortable with. Then maybe one day someone will ask me what kind of brushes I use to create pictures.
The only thing I actually do when buying brushes is see how they feel when I drag them across my skin. It gives me a prety good idea of what I am buying.
Great post.
I also wanted to suggest one more thing.
One of my favorite brushes is a modified brush I use that was once a fan bristle. I used my hair trimmers to turn it into a flat.
I trimmed the sides that fan out straight up the sides and trimmed the curvature at the ends to make it flat and straight. I can get effects from that like no other brush I have evr seen store bought.
I thought about what I needed and made the brush serve me.
I have since done that with a number of my brushes. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt.
I highly recommend visualizing your needs and if you have a set of hair clippers...barber those suckers.
I just dont ever want my results in the hands of brush makers. It is better to have brush makers in the hands of the artist.
I bet Royal Langnickel has never sold more brushes than when endorsed by Jeremy Lipking or Tony Pro or the master himself Richard Schmid.
After all, what if those brush makers go out of business. I dont want my work to hinge upon whether or not I have a 5590.
I use and love the 5590's, but honestly half of the brush's I buy end up falling apart after a couple days of painting (and I do take very good care of my brushes). There are the random ones that last a while and eventually stop losing hair, but it's rare. I am placing my order right now! thanks Matt.
Hey Greg-
I agree with much of what you say, though I will defend materials to an extent. For example, I would suggest to a beginning painter that if they are serious, then they should start out by buying professional grade oil paint, not student grade. Why struggle to learn using an inferior material? Besides, the student grade is so pigment-poor, that it is usually more economical to buy the higher quality paint which has more tinting strength and better covering power.
I liken it to the time my wife and I painted our kitchen with paint from Walmart. It took four coats to change our white kitchen to pale yellow. When we painted our living room, we bought Behr paint at Home Depot, which is generally more expensive (we bought ours half price on the reject table). We changed our walls from white to olive green with one coat.
As far as a brush like the 5590 goes, it's a matter of having the right tool for the job. Those brushes produce a look that another brush, say a hog's hair bright, does not. Different brushes just produce different marks, independent of the skill of the user (some painters can just do so much more with the right equipment).
To use your music analogy, if you wanted to play a piece by Segovia which was written for a 12 string classical guitar, you wouldn't pick up a steel 6 string and expect to get the same results. It's not a matter of one guitar being better than another; it's a matter of one guitar being designed for certain sounds, while the other was designed for different sounds.
The marks your customized fan brush makes with thinned paint probably relate to the marks you get with your 5590s and thinned paint. Wet hairs on a fan brush tend to separate and make that rake-like pattern. But if that is the look you want, wouldn't it be better if you could buy a brush that was shaped for the job (that includes the shape of the hairs and the natural taper of each filament)? Especially if you could find one that was well-made, and could bear standard usage (thereby being more economical)?
Of course, buying the same materials Schmid buys won't make you paint just like Schmid, and if that is someone's thought behind purchasing the materials, they will be sorely disappointed. Good equipment won't make you a better artist, but bad equipment can certainly hinder your abilities.
Nice to hear from you; hope you are well. How's the foot?
The foot is doing better. Thanks for asking.
Yes, I see what you mean. good point.
just thought you might be interested in the december 13, 09 post by matt bernier over at comic tools
http://comictool.blogspot.com/search/label/brushes
where he tests rosemary brushes
Thanks for the link!
I've heard some mixed things about Ro&Co's brushes, but as far as the ones I've used (the 279 long flats), they are generally better than the closest counterpart, the Langnickel 5590.
Dear Tony,
You have your skills as an artists great. A few of us have skills with Fine Hair as Artists Brush Makers, if you want to chat
about what you need out of a series 5590, e-mail me.... I will try and help you..
Best Regards David UK.
e-mail bigdavejackson@hotmail.co.uk
@gregory, luve the post man. Very true in many ways. I will admit that tools help an artist get to his ideals, but in the end it was what he knew that put it on canvas. I quote, Morris Hunt,"You paint with your mind not your hands". Is it talent, experience or inspiration.???
Probably all the above and more. I've seen people render wonderful charcoal pictures but cant paint for waffles. That I believe is the mind not understanding some principles. Which who knows, if the mind will come to grasp it??
awesome! It's true haven't seen you put much painting up here in a while, but really sweet!
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