Unusual Brushes and Palette Knives Inside the Artist's Toolkit

The bristles of a brush can shape a mark as decisively as the paint itself. A flat, square-edged brush lays down architectural sweeps of colour, while a splayed, frayed brush scatters pigment like dry leaves across a canvas. Tool choice quietly drives the visual vocabulary of every painter, and some of the most arresting work on display during community studio tours comes from artists who collect, modify, or invent their implements.

Among the studios along the South Orange Maplewood Artists Studio Tour, visitors often spot palette knives leaning against easels next to traditional brushes, alongside improvised tools that defy easy categorisation. The annual free tour invites the curious to peer over shoulders, ask questions, and learn how a single instrument can transform a routine painting session into an experimental exploration. Browsing the SOMA Studio Tour beforehand is a good way to plan a route and identify which studios are best for tool-spotting.

Beyond the bristle: unexpected brush materials

Natural-hair brushes get most of the attention, but synthetic filaments have opened new territory for painters willing to experiment. Nylon and taklon hold their shape under heavy acrylic loading, while flagged synthetic tips mimic the soft drag of sable without the ethical questions. In Australia, where the humidity of a Brisbane summer can warp wooden handles and swell natural hair, synthetic brushes from makers like Art Spectrum or the local supplier Eckersley's Art & Craft have become practical favourites for plein-air painters working along the Yarra or in coastal studios near Fremantle.

Beyond synthetics, brushes now appear in materials once reserved for industrial work. Foam brushes lay down velvety gradients, silicone tips print crisp textures, and the soft chamois-leather mop spreads thin glazes over large surfaces with barely a stroke. Each material responds differently to viscosity, drag, and drying time, encouraging painters to slow down and listen to how the tool wants to move.

The palette knife as sculpture tool

A palette knife is often described as a tool for mixing, but painters who push impasto to its limits treat it as a primary mark-maker. Long, flexible blades sweep arcs of buttery oil paint across a panel; short, diamond-shaped knives carve ridges and valleys that catch raking light. The result resembles a small topographic map, a technique that has earned admiration from judges at Australia's Archibald Prize when finalists build layered portrait surfaces.

Knife work rewards a particular physical rhythm. Rather than the wrist-flick of a brush, painters lean into the blade, allowing gravity to pull pigment across the support. Cleaning is its own meditation: scraping excess paint onto a glass slab, wiping with a rag dampened with odourless mineral spirit, then polishing the metal until it gleams. The ritual keeps edges sharp and colours pure from session to session.

Heritage brushes from around the world

Traditional brushes carry centuries of design intelligence. Hake brushes, with their wide, soft bamboo-bound heads, are excellent for flooding watercolour washes over large sheets, and they sit comfortably alongside the delicate sumi-e brushes imported through specialty shops in Melbourne's CBD. Chinese calligraphy brushes, when dry-loaded with oil paint, produce fibrous, scratchy lines reminiscent of weathered bark, while Indian goat-hair mops release colour in soft, cloudy blooms suited to atmospheric skies.

Tour-goers interested in watching heritage tools at work often pause at studios where artists blend Eastern and Western techniques. Painter Aron Lifschultz, whose studio is featured on the tour, welcomes visitors to see how he layers pigment with both classical brushes and adapted kitchen utensils, demonstrating that tradition and improvisation can share the same easel.

DIY brushes and found-object tools

Many painters eventually outgrow the catalogue and start making their own tools. A bundle of coarse horsehair tied to a dowel becomes a fierce scrubber for underpainting; a notched piece of cardboard scraped through wet acrylic leaves stripes of resist; a battered silicone spatula lifts veils of glaze from a printed surface. Hardware-store finds also play a role: putty knives, notched trowels, and even old loyalty cards from the Australian chain Bunnings can stand in for traditional blades.

These improvised implements change how an artist thinks about mark-making. Rather than forcing a tool to perform a task it was not designed for, the painter accepts the gesture the object naturally makes. A notched comb drags arcs across a panel, a torn rag stamps dappled shadows, and the resulting surface feels discovered rather than designed.

Caring for unconventional tools

Improvised and unusual tools need a little extra attention to last. Foam brushes should be rinsed promptly because dried acrylic hardens inside the cells and turns them rigid. Synthetic filaments appreciate a gentle wash with mild soap and a reshaped dry on a flat surface, away from direct sun that can warp ferrules. Metal blades, including palette knives and adapted putty knives, benefit from a light coat of camellia oil after cleaning to prevent rust in humid coastal studios from Sydney to Cairns.

Brushes that have seen better days need not be discarded. A splayed, frayed brush becomes a texture tool in its own right, capable of dragging dry pigment across a panel or stippling foliage into a landscape. Keeping a quiet shelf of worn implements turns the end of one tool's life into the beginning of a new expressive vocabulary.

Bringing even one unusual implement along on a studio visit transforms passive looking into hands-on learning. Watching a painter put a strange tool through its paces in person reveals more in five minutes than any catalogue description ever could, and the conversations that follow often outlast the tour itself.