Affordable soft mop brush suggestions
Hi, I just want to give suggestions for some cheaper soft hair mop-size brushes. There was a time I was struggling to find the right brushes. These are what I find that are decent/good quality with reasonable price tags. Hope this helps. Maybe you can give your find of gems here as well. All of these hold general amount of water and points well.
Pro arte Sablesque Blended Mop Brush
I own the smallest size, 3/0 (equal to size 8 round), around 5-6 US dollars, it was my first experience of using sable hair. The hair is soft but has a snap to it. It seems like the handle tend to crack so be careful and don't leave it in water. It is not a top tier sable, but I like it a lot.
Royal Langnickel Zen Watercolor Brushes
I own several flat brushes of these, but they have Round Wash that's similar to Mops but with a metal ferrule. The handle is not wood but plastic and is straight like a sumi brush. The hair is soft, somewhat similar to Davinci Casaneo , but price tag is unbelievable, a Small Round Wash, equal to size 10 round, is about $3. Some hair may fall out the first use, I found that the glue they use is not that great, but if you don't stab your brush, like in some techniques, it will be fine. If the hair keeps falling out, remove the handle, drop epoxy glue in the hair end and glue the handle back.
They don't have a mop but a big fat round in that set in the link. I have a no.10 Round, the hair is soft similar to Princeton Neptune but perhaps a little snappier and points better.
I also own a no.10 Round Caviar brush by Dynasty, but it's hard to find anywhere, I got it from here, the hair is the softest synthetic I've seen, act almost like real squirrel hair
There are other options as well, but the price or character doesn't match my choice, such as Jackson's own brand of Squirrel Mops and Ravens lines, Rapheal's soft aqua line, Princeton Neptune, Da Vinci's, Escoda's, Chinese calligraphy brushes etc ,Rosemary and co lists good price but the shipping cost to US is bit much, I would have to buy a number to justify the shipping.
ODE TO A BRUSH: My First Love in mops was a Da Vinci Cosmotop Spin Quill in Size 5. I was doing some idle shopping in Artisan in Santa Fe without any idea of what art supplies I might need. We have no brick-and-mortar art supply stores where I live, so I was thrilled just to wander around. I was running my hands along the supply shelves when a brush suddenly fell out of a rack. It was the aforementioned Quill. There was a water cup and some dark paper nearby, so I tried it out. “ What a great point! I wonder why it has such a fat belly?“ I thought to myself. It was around $36 at the time and out of my normal price range, but I am a great believer in serendipitous moments—that’s how I choose books to read in a bookstore—and I bought it. After all, it could count both as a brush AND a souvenir! That brush changed my life. It was more difficult to control than a Round, but it could make such thin-to-thick lines—and carried so much pigment that I could paint and paint and paint before dipping again. It made me paint more artistically, if that makes any sense.
I’ve since acquired some other brands of mops/quills, and I agree about the large Mimik being a great brush for the price. Just before the pandemic started, I did a weeklong workshop with Ken Hobson, who uses mops a lot. He insisted that the Creative Mark Squirrel mops from Jerrys were “required.” I brought my other brands, thinking that I already had plenty and didn’t need to match EVERYTHING on his list. And lo and behold, for his techniques, he was right. My mops didn’t do what his did. He lent a couple of his mops to me to try, and whoa! I could smoosh them, swoosh them, and get effects that my mops wouldn’t do. So I do think that style and technique have a great deal to do with what works best in this category.