Testing the Willow Wolfe Callia Brushes for Mixed Media

The Callia vary of mixed media brushes by Willow Wolfe are designed with adaptability in mind: to be used for watercolour, acrylic, and oil paints. In its place of getting a distinct brush vary for each medium, Willow Wolfe handily brings together them all into a person. This can make them extremely adaptable and provides to their value, specifically for combined media artists or all those who appreciate switching from a single medium to an additional. They are also best for artists who are just beginning their imaginative journey, and are experimenting with a selection of models and mediums. I am mostly a watercolorist, but I also dabble in acrylics and h2o-mixable oils when the temper requires me. So, I was on the lookout ahead to placing these brushes to the examination.

What Makes Willow Wolfe Callia Brushes Unique?

Designed by a Canadian corporation known as Willow Wolfe, the Callia Brushes are entirely synthetic. A single of the company’s principal aims was to produce higher high quality, affordable brush strains containing no animal hair or items. Their modern synthetic blends with modified filaments are designed to keep and distribute pigment with an even and reliable flow, as perfectly as improving overall performance and sturdiness. They are also created to be a lot more inexpensive than standard animal hair watercolour brushes. This tends to make the Callia vary very related in today’s art industry, wherever there is substantial desire and a escalating demand for very affordable vegan artwork materials.

A lot of consideration to depth has long gone into the layout of these brushes. Working with sound brass ferrules which are securely crimped to glossy black handles, Willow Wolfe provides strong-on the lookout and stylish brushes which come in an intriguing vary of designs and measurements. In accordance to their web page, they also use a 6-step approach to their creations, which requires many coats of filler, primer and paint to shield the brush handles from cracking, ordinarily brought on by the wooden core inflammation when it will come into make contact with with h2o. I’m certain we’ve all experienced a favourite brush that has served us properly for yrs right before suddenly the handle commences to crack, and the end flakes away… and all at after, the brush gets just about unusable! So, reading about the careful manufacturing approach that these brushes go by means of is a enormous in addition stage.

Requirements of Willow Wolfe Callia Brushes

I made the decision to attempt out the Willow Wolfe variations of a number of common brushes:

As nicely some that ended up fewer familiar to me personally:

There are three distinctive varieties of synthetic filaments made use of to make these brushes. To start with, the Filbert, Flat Wash, Flat shader, Spherical and Dagger brushes are created utilizing a mix of multi-diameter cultured artificial. The filaments are etched to build microscopic pockets for color to absorb into, making a managed launch of pigment and good condition retention.

Future, the Dodo Drybrush and Dome Drybrush are both of those manufactured from a blend of multi-diameter flagged suggestion bristle. The firm filaments are break up at the idea, developing the means to maintain heavy-bodied paint, or to dry brush by getting rid of surplus paint in advance of building the stroke.

And lastly, the Leading Mop, Dodo Mop and Moa Mop are produced with a mix of crimped synthetic. Every single strand is crimped and formed like a wave, manufacturing air pockets amongst each filament, giving these mops incredibly gentle outcomes.

Employing the Willow Wolfe Callia Brushes with H2o-Mixable Oil Paint

I commenced by screening a few brushes with water-mixable oil paints, working with a Jackson’s Oil Colour Block 10 x 12 inch. I attempted the 3/4 inch Flat Wash, the 1/2 inch Dodo Drybrush, the #5 Dome Drybrush, the 1/4 inch Dodo Mop and the #2 Moa Mop.

I completely loved my mark producing experiments with these brushes, and I preferred the way they done on the linen texture of the colour block. The 3/4 inch Flat Wash brush was superb at delivering the paint wherever and how I preferred, from thick and blocked in sweeps of colour, to softly textured dry brush and the 1/4 inch Dodo mop and #2 Moa Mop built gentle perform of my swift trials of blending and stippling. The Dome Drybrush was extremely functional with it is Filbert-like profile and rigid bristles, perfect for mixing or making use of paint to awkward spaces. The Flat Clean was adaptable and responsive, with lots of mark building prospective in phrases of form and mixing capability, with adequate spring to keep its very own form when making use of the oil paint. Out of these five brushes, I liked the #2 Moa Mop best. It was this sort of a wonderful tiny blending brush, and I experienced to quit myself from mixing almost everything on the webpage as it was so a lot entertaining to use!

I was also delighted to come across that the rounded brush deal with ends have been fantastic to drag or etch as a result of the paint, to increase even additional texture to my experiments. Owing to time constraints and the all-natural drying time of oil paints, I was only in a position to check out 1 layer: even so, given much more time for drying, I have no question that the brushes would be up to the work of layering and glazing as effectively.

Applying the Willow Wolfe Callia Brushes with Acrylic Paint

Up coming, I selected the 3/4 inch Top rated Mop, the #10 Flat Shader and the #2 Moa Mop to test with acrylics on a Jackson’s Acrylic Paper Block 10 x 12 inch, and applied my usual method of portray with them soaked in damp, in a comparable design to that of a watercolour. This is my individual approach of portray but these brushes can also be utilized for any model of acrylic painting as nicely.

For my 1st experiment I put in a rough sky clean with the Leading Mop. It held and delivered a great deal of paint, offering me a fantastically diffused sky wash, and the Flat Shader was good for roughing in some land, and incorporating texture and grasses to the foreground. The Top rated Mop produced speedy work of painting in a distant tree line, and as a bonus, the rounded finish of the brush was fantastic for etching out a couple impressions of trunks and branches, and incorporating even additional levels of texture to the foreground. If I was taking the portray more, as soon as dry I would effortlessly be able to use these three brushes to go on layering up and adding dimension and complexity to the painting. Even so, I got distracted by some interesting marks that I was able to make with the Prime Mop and plenty of loaded paint, so I promptly laid down a new soaked in wet wash and performed with the abstract designs and marks that the brush gave me, utilizing thick acrylic paint in a variety of blends of color onto the wet track record clean.

For me, a person of the symptoms of a good brush is if I ignore that I am screening it and just get into the portray zone, and the Prime Mop did that for me. I assume it has large probable in all media, and will unquestionably be introducing a single to my private collection.

Applying the Willow Wolfe Callia Brushes with Watercolour Paint

I chose the 3/4 inch Best Mop, the 3/4 inch Flat Wash, #8 Spherical, and 3/8 inch Dagger brushes to exam with watercolour paints and a piece of Arches Aquarelle Rough Paper. The brushes all performed effectively: the spherical, flat and filbert held a fantastic quantity of paint, and produced it evenly. The Top rated Mop turned out to be an outstanding massive wash brush, really mild and fulfilling to use. The dagger and flat taken care of well, the flat keeping a great deal of paint and releasing it in a effectively managed way from the chisel suggestion. The dagger way too held more than enough paint for a good deal of strokes, combining a sharp level with a smooth, curved edge that presents a delightful flexibility.

Even with staying made as blended media brushes, the ones I tested all done the way I would anticipate a excellent watercolour brush to get the job done, and have been each cozy and satisfying to paint with. They have a good h2o and paint keeping capacity, which is naturally essential for watercolour portray as well as acquiring a great amount of money of spring. There is also enough range in the assortment to make a assortment of various marks, and would likely get the job done properly for many unique painting styles.

Final Thoughts

I beloved the versatility of these brushes, and the simplicity with which I was equipped to use them to transfer my possess style and tactics between mediums. I discovered the Willow Wolfe Callia Brushes to be equally at residence painting in oils, acrylics, and watercolour alike: I felt like there was no leaning towards one media in unique, which makes them excellent for combined media artists. I am unquestionably tempted to incorporate a couple of the Callia selection to my have personal assortment. I particularly enjoyed applying the #2 Moa Mop and the #5 Dome Drybrush, as screening these brushes has motivated me to proceed down my route of experimentation with oil portray. Nicely made and long lasting, economical and elegant, the Willow Wolfe Callia Brushes undoubtedly would seem to tick all the boxes.

More Studying

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Knowledge Brush Sizing Methods

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A Family Issue: Handcrafting Brushes

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