The Da Vinci Series 5330 Watercolor Brush Travel Set is suitable for those who are into drawing details.
The brushes are short handle, body is made of wood. They are light but strong. The nickel plated brass ferrule holds the Russian Red Sable hair, or if you look at the brushes body, it says 'USSURI SABLE'. Ussuri is the name of the river in Russia where the Kolinsky lives.
These sable hair brushes can hold their shape and tip well after each stroke.
The set consist of 6 watercolour brushes for sizes 3/0, 2/0, 0, 2, 4, 6.
Since the brush sizes are quite small, it's less frustrating when you work on smaller paper or sketchbook sizes, such as A5 sizes (open to A4). You can use the size 6 for filling colours for larger areas, and the smaller ones for minute detail.
Th lightweight travel case that it comes with comes in two parts. There's the clear plastic slipcover, and the blue cushion foam. On the blue foam, there are six holes for you the put the brushes in so that they can stand upright, easy to be picked up. Nifty. The blue foam is sort of thicker than an A5 sketchbook.
While I use it outdoors, under the sun, I found out that it can be quite difficult to put the foam back into the slipcover. The foam probably expanded making it slightly too big to slip back in. After it cools down, the problem goes away. You need the slipcover to prevent the brushes from falling out.
If you just need to bring 2-3 brushes out, they can fit into those long metal watercolour travel cases.
Another thing to note, these brushes are not that suitable for paper that are too dry. The small brushes do not hold much water, so using it on dry paper means you have to reload them constantly.
For the quality of the brushes, I would rate this set 5 out of 5 stars.
As for the value of the set, I would compare it with the Da Vinci Series 5359 set. That set has one less brush and does not come with the travel case, and is cheaper. So it's up to you to decide whether you need that case or not.
This is a sketch drawn with the brushes.
And if you need a travel brush set that's even more compact (because of the big blue foam), I suggest the Da Vinci Series 1503 Maestro Travel Watercolour Brushes which has sizes 1 to 12.
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