PAB Artists Brushes
Attilio Bagnoli founded the brush Company PAB (Pennellifcio Attilio Bagnoli) in Florence, in 1911. They have constantly been at the forefront of Italian brushmaking and the company is still owned and operated by the Bagnoli family.
PAB have an international reputation for high quality brushes, especially in the field of specialist decorating brushes. Alongside these core products, PAB also produce an assortment of bespoke and high quality brushes for artists.
Some of the brushes you will be familiar with: the optimum quality Kolinsky sable for example. Each brush is crafted perfectly and will last for years. The range also introduces brush styles which are new to the market. For example, the extra long handle flat hog brushes (series 180), ideal for artists working at scale with oil colour, where gestural marks can be applied with verve and freedom.
PAB Ox Hair Brush, Round Tip, Long Handle
£6.15
Ox Hair, Round Tip BR/01 (series 40)
Soft, supple natural hair artist brushes made using hair from the ear of the Ox. Ideal for oil painting: they give some of the softness of Sable, yet have resilience to oils and solvents while painting. Allows controlled marks to be made, especially when applying glazes and softening/blending oil paint.
Featuring a long, red lacquered handle the Ox Hair brushes are also useful for water-based paint such as gouache, watercolour & acrylic.
The larger size brush heads are ideal for big washes in watercolour or dilute acrylic and represent a considerable saving when compared to sable hair brushes.
PAB Ox Hair Brush, Flat Tip, Long Handle
£6.15
Ox Hair, Flat Tip BR/02 (series 41)
Soft, supple natural hair artist brushes made using hair from the ear of the Ox. Ideal for oil painting: they give some of the softness of Sable, yet have resilience to oils and solvents while painting. Allows controlled marks to be made, especially when applying glazes and softening/blending oil paint.
Featuring a long, red lacquered handle the Ox Hair brushes are also useful for water-based paint such as gouache, watercolour & acrylic.
The larger size brush heads are ideal for big washes in watercolour or dilute acrylic and represent a considerable saving when compared to sable hair brushes.
PAB Ox Hair Brush, Filbert, Cats Tongue Tip, Long Handle
£9.25
Ox Hair, Filbert, Cat's Tongue Tip BR/03 (series 42)
Soft, supple natural hair artist brushes made using hair from the ear of the Ox. Ideal for oil painting: they give some of the softness of Sable, yet have resilience to oils and solvents while painting. Allows controlled marks to be made, especially when applying glazes and softening/blending oil paint.
Featuring a long, red lacquered handle the Ox Hair brushes are also useful for water-based paint such as gouache, watercolour & acrylic.
The larger size brush heads are ideal for big washes in watercolour or dilute acrylic and represent a considerable saving when compared to sable hair brushes.
PAB Ox Hair Brush, Script Writer, Long Handle
£19.20
Ox Hair, Script Writer BR/04 (series 45)
Soft, supple natural hair artist brushes made using hair from the ear of the Ox. Ideal for oil painting: they give some of the softness of Sable, yet have resilience to oils and solvents while painting.
Allows controlled applications - paint is loaded to the belly of the brush, then gradually released. Originally created for sign writing, gives control to linear marks. Long, red lacquered handle.
PAB Ox Hair Brush, Filbert Tip, Short Handle
£29.40
Ox Hair, Filbert Tip , with short handle (series 78)
Soft, supple natural hair artist brushes made using hair from the ear of the Ox. This short but thick handle is ideal for laying in washes in water-based paints.
The broad but tapered ‘Cat’s Tongue’ tip, gently releases the paint load to the painting surface. Especially useful for layering coats of gouache, or slightly diluted acrylic, where a flat, even application is required.
PAB Martora Kolinsky Tonda M.Corto Sable Brush
£12.35
PAB Kolinsky Sable Brush, Extra Fine BR/06 (series 320C)
Hand-selected Kolinsky Sable, with a tapered tip for maximum suppleness with perfect control of paint release. These brushes use only the highest grade of Sable that is carefully sorted and shaped. This is then tightly packed into the ferrule for maximum control and precision for watercolour painting. The handle is perfectly balanced so while painting the brush almost becomes an extension of the painter’s arm.
The fat ‘belly’ of the brush creates a reservoir for the loaded paint, which gently releases onto the paper surface, as the artist makes contact with the paper sheet.
Balance and control. The larger sizes perform best and are very versatile. For example, if you use a size 12 or 16 there is no need to have smaller sizes. The brush tip has enough control and precision to make the mark you desire yet with the same brush you can make extended washes of dilute watercolour, without having to reload the brush with more paint.
PAB Pure Bristle Flat Varnish Brush
£5.15
Pure Bristle Varnish Brush BR/08 (series INOX)
These flat brushes are excellent for priming canvas or boards. The brush hair is tightly packed into the flat ferrule but also shaped at the tip, so that with prolonged use, the tip of the brush always retains its shape and suppleness. The tips of the hair, show under the microscope as ‘flags’ - minute interlocking hairs, that form together when wet, helping to retain shape. Contrast this to most flat hair brushes, where the tips are simply cut to gain a straight edge to the brush hair. This type of brush tends to splay when used. Our Pure Bristle Varnish Brushes don’t do that. They retain their shape. As the name suggest, the primary use (in decorating terms) is for applying flat glazes or varnishes and indeed, they make excellent varnish brushes, solvent or water-based.
We recommend these brushes for all sizing and priming applications. It is normal to dilute 20-30% with water, so that the priming material runs off the brush, rather than clog the brush hairs. We offer 5mm thickness, so that not too much of the priming material gets lodged into the brush hairs. By contrast, a brush that is 10mm thick will retain too much of the primer/gesso and make for an uneven application. When priming, we always suggest multiple thinned coats, rather than one thick coating. Helps create the optimum flatness of coating, so that applied colour lays down flat too.
Size 20mm to 90mm are made with INOX Ferrules - that do not rust when left in water. Size 100mm is not resistant to water 9will rust) but we included it here, because some artists need that width. The raw wooden handle is also of note. When used a lot with water-based priming techniques, a raw wooden handle is advantageous. By comparison, lacquered handles tend to splinter and flake over time - which can be very annoying when the splinters drop off into the primer/paint during application.
PAB Pure Bristle Varnish Brush
£6.25
Pure Bristle Varnish Brush BR/09 (series 362)
A thicker (10mm) priming/varnish brush. It is ideal for applications of natural gesso (rabbit glue+whiting) to panels or raw frames, as it hold more gesso and is useful when pushing the gesso into corners or intricate parts of frame moulding, etc.
PAB Extra Long Handle Flat Hog Brush
£5.90
Extra Long Handle Flat Hog BR/10 (series 180)
Made with the same technique as the Flat Hog Varnish INOX brush but with an extra long raw wood handle. The low price makes this brush ideal for artists who want to apply larger amounts/wodges of paint, especially when working in an expressive/gestural style at scale. The longer handle allows the artist to work at a further distance from the easel/wall/floor, while retains control.
The raw wood handle means no lacquer cracking off and spoiling of the paint mix.
PAB “Muccino” Fresco Pure Bristle Brush
£19.70
“Muccino” Fresco Brush Pure Bristle Brush BR/12 (series 108)
Ideal for all water-based painting, especially useful for laying in large passages of colour.
The tip is domed to provide control of application of wet paint. The interlocking hog bustle helps retain the domed shaped of the tip, even after prolonged use. The chunky but light in weight raw wood handles allow good, supple balance in the hand when working. The brush hair is bound in string and glue, so when not in use during the painting session, the brush can be left in water without fear of rusting, etc. Originally designed for use in fresco painting, these large size brush heads provide great freedom and expression for artists working in any water-based medius but especially semi-dilute acrylics, where the artists needs to cover larger areas of canvas with loose marks.
PAB “Riga” Fresco Pure Bristle Brush
£17.40
“Riga” Fresco Brush Pure Bristle BR/13 (series 105)
These string bound brushes are similar to Muccino but have a tapered point, for more linear applications, or where some degree of detail is required. The raw wood handle is round, rather than hexagonal as with Muccino and are lighter in weight by comparison.
PAB Round Hog Bristle Brush for Oil Painting
£6.75
Hog Bristle Brush for Oil Painting ROUND BR/14 (series 65)
The classic oil painters’ brush: made with interlocking “Chunking” hog bristle. The tip of the brush becomes more shaped with use, as the hairs re-join after each use and re-form the original shape.
The belly of the brush is loaded with paint and the paint load is then dispersed with accuracy, according to the shape of the tip. The hard-wearing bristles are resistant to solvents such as Double-Rectified Turpentine and Low Odour Solvent.
PAB Flat Hog Bristle Brush for Oil Painting
£6.85
Hog Bristle Brush for Oil Painting FLAT BR/15 (series 70)
The classic oil painters’ brush: made with interlocking “Chunking” hog bristle. The tip of the brush becomes more shaped with use, as the hairs re-join after each use and re-form the original shape.
The belly of the brush is loaded with paint and the paint load is then dispersed with accuracy, according to the shape of the tip. The hard-wearing bristles are resistant to solvents such as Double-Rectified Turpentine and Low Odour Solvent.
PAB Filbert Hog Bristle Brush for Oil Painting
£7.45
Hog Bristle Brush for Oil Painting FILBERT BR/16 (series 68)
The classic oil painters’ brush: made with interlocking “Chunking” hog bristle. The tip of the brush becomes more shaped with use, as the hairs re-join after each use and re-form the original shape.
The belly of the brush is loaded with paint and the paint load is then dispersed with accuracy, according to the shape of the tip. The hard-wearing bristles are resistant to solvents such as Double-Rectified Turpentine and Low Odour Solvent.
PAB “BRISLON” Synthetic Flat Hog Brush
£22.10
“BRISLON” Synthetic Flat Hog BR17 (series 995)
Ideal for oil or acrylic painting, the ‘Brislon’ brush is supple yet resistant to solvents. It mimics the properties of natural bristle hog but has added resilience over time and usage. We also found they are very accurate in terms of applied marks. We use them all the time, to paint our oil colour labels - we use them repeatedly, over and over again, without wear and tear.
PAB “TIGER TORAY” Filbert synthetic filament Brush
£11.65
“TIGER TORAY” Filbert synthetic filament BR18 (series 996218)
Short handled, synthetic filament: all round brush for all water-based media. Especially useful for surface pattern design, graphic work, watercolour and gouache. The synthetic hair is very resilient but always retains its shape, so can be used never and over again without issue. In contrast to cheap ‘single use’ synthetic brushes, the ‘Tiger Toray’ brush has an extended life and represents excellent value.
PAB "Strozzato" Pure Bristle, Round, Extra Long Raw Wooden Handle Brush
£24.35
"Strozzato" pure bristle, round, extra long raw wooden handle BR/11 (series 320)
These chunky, hog bristle brushes are excellent when high paint loads are required. This ‘bog-brush’ format is perfect for making energetic marks with oil or acrylic colour, especially so for gestural painting, where heavier paint applications are desired.
The brush tip is gently domed, so despite the large size, the artist retains control of the paint application.
The longer handle allows the artist to work at a further distance from the easel/wall/floor, while retains control.
The raw wood handle means no lacquer cracking off and spoiling of the paint mix.
PAB Martora Kolinsky Sable, Retouching Brush
£20.40
PAB Martora Kolinsky Sable Retouching Brush, BR/07
Hand-selected Kolinsky Sable, perfectly balanced so while painting the brush almost becomes an extension of the painter’s arm.
PAB Flat hog 'Splatter' Brush, 150mm wide
£13.10 - Sold Out
PAB Flat hog 'Splatter' Brush, 150mm wide BR18
PAB Tiralinee Black Hog/Synthetic Hog "Riga" Brush with wooden handle
£20.40
PAB Tiralinee Black Hog/Synthetic Hog "Riga", round tip, raw wooden handle, string bound BR20
