paintbrush challenge
makers are nimble of fi nger and cold of hand. So, with years of futile attempts at pastry making under my belt thanks to hot extremities, I knew that handcrafting my own paintbrush might be a personal struggle, but could this be offset by the fact that I am good at threading needles? “It’s not as easy as you might think,”
A
warns Rosemary. “It’s fi ddly and you’ve got to be dexterous. The beauty of handmade is that we can get it right. You cannot make a decent quality sable brush on a machine. People will say you can: I can tell you it will look pretty but after six weeks it will pack in. The brushes have to work. We do demonstrations and there’s always someone from the audience who thinks they can do it and they never can.” Undeterred, I decided to visit
Rosemary & Co. headquarters in the small industrial town of Keighley in West Yorkshire to fi nd out if I had what it takes. Rosemary has been making brushes for 30 years. She was a nurse for a short time, painting on the side, but increasingly found the materials too expensive. Having previously made fi shing fl ies for her brother, he
ccording to Rosemary & Co. founder Rosemary Thompson, the people who are predisposed to being good paintbrush
“BRUSH MAKING IS NOT AS EASY AS YOU MIGHT THINK,” WARNS ROSEMARY. “IT’S FIDDLY AND YOU’VE GOT TO BE DEXTEROUS”
suggested she try making her own brushes instead. She began by teaching herself, before
spending six weeks in Japan being tutored by an old brush maker. Armed with his ideas, she developed her own way of making – by hand. Although the fi ne art industries comprise the vast majority of her clients, Rosemary also makes for a glass-eye maker, several police forensic teams and a host of TV make-up artists: “I always think ‘that’s not a lip brush, it’s a fi lbert size 2’.” The fi rst rule of brush making is
BELOW, FROM LEFT The brass ‘canons’; the ferrule press; the skeins of natural animal hair
keep your hands covered with talc to stop them sticking to the hair. “Natural hair is oily like ours,” says Rosemary, explaining why she and the 14 female brush makers in her company – known affectionately by Rosemary as “my girls” – work on slabs of marble. “If your hands are sweaty and warm you can’t make a brush. Marble keeps your hands cold.” The hair arrives in neat, uniform
‘skeins’ (circular bundles, held together by paper) imported from reputable
sources in Russia, Canada and China. It has been taken from an animal’s tail (usually a sable, squirrel or hog) and divided into eight different lengths of hair. The longest hair – known as guard hair – is the most expensive, which is why there is a price hike on the larger sable brushes. To begin making my fi rst brush,
I cooled my hands on the marble, covered them in talc and took a careful pinch of hair from the skeins. There’s no fi xed number of hairs per brush – Rosemary estimates and says that your estimations get better with experience. The skeins cost hundreds of pounds so it pays not to be cack- handed at this stage. Next to my marble slab is a set of
brass goblets (also known as ‘canons’) that look sort of like thimbles on steroids. The goblets come in various diameters and shapes, depending on what sort of brush is to be made. They are always kept cold and the pinch of hair is fed into them. Interestingly, these goblets are not
for sharing: every serious brush maker will have their own set that they use throughout their entire career. “I know this sounds ridiculous but it’s like when someone borrows your car and you get back in and they have adjusted the mirror and the seat,” says Rosemary. “Once you have your own goblets you won’t move off them.” Once the hair is in place, Rosemary
shows me how to straighten it by bashing the bottom of the goblet quickly and repeatedly on the marble.
HAIR ARRIVES IN NEAT ‘SKEINS’ FROM REPUTABLE SOURCES IN CHINA, RUSSIA AND CANADA
SERIOUS BRUSH MAKERS WILL HAVE THEIR OWN SET OF ‘CANONS’ THAT THEY USE FOR THEIR ENTIRE CAREER
42 Artists & Illustrators
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