the
smaller sizes of _riggers_. These are thin, long brushes which are
useful for outlining, and all sorts of fine, sharp touches. You use
them to go over a drawing with paint in laying in a picture, and for
branches, twigs, etc. As their name implies, you must have them for
the rigging of vessels in marine painting also. The three sizes shown
in the cut on the opposite page are those you should have, and if you
get two of each, you will find them useful in all sorts of places.
When you buy them, see that they are elastic and firm, that they come
naturally and easily to a good point, without any scraggy hairs. Test
them by moistening them, and then pressing the point on the
thumb-nail. They should bend evenly through the whole length of the
hair. Reject any which seem "weak in the back." If it lays flat toward
the point and bends all in one place near the ferrule, it is a poor
brush.

[Illustration]

These three larger and thicker sizes come in very useful often and it
would be well if you were to have these too. Sometimes a thick, long
sable brush will serve better than another for heavy lines, etc.

All these brushes are round. One largish flat sable like this it would
be well to have; but these are all the sables necessary.

[Illustration]

=Bristle Brushes.=--The sable brush or pencil is often necessary; but
oil painting is practically always done with the bristle, or "hog
hair," brush. These are the ones which will make up the variety of
kinds in your six dozen. A good bristle brush is not to be bought
merely by taking the first which comes to hand. Good brushes have very
definite qualities, and you should have no trouble in picking them
out. Nevertheless, you will take the trouble to select them, if you
care to have any satisfaction in using them.

=The Bristle.=--You want your brush to be made of the hair just as it
grew on the hog. All hair, in its natural state, has what is called
the "flag." That is the fine, smooth taper towards the natural end of
it, and generally the division into two parts. This gives the bristle,
no matter how thick it may be, a silky fineness towards the end; and
when this part only of the bristle is used in the brush, you will have
all the firmness and elasticity of the bristle, and also a delicacy
and smoothness and softness quite equal to a sable. But this, in the
short hair of an artist's brush, wastes all the rest of the length of
the hair; for it is only by cutting off the