My brushes are not brushes. They are twigs from a neem tree and I sharpen them myself.
People ask me which brush company and I have to laugh. For the fine black line in Mithila work we do not buy brushes at all. We take a small twig, neem or sometimes bamboo, and we chew the end of it, or press and roll it on a stone until the tip becomes soft and pointed like a needle. Then it is a brush. Nothing else. I keep a small bundle of them tied with thread and when one goes blunt I simply cut the tip and make it again.
My mother used to do this sitting outside in the morning light and I do the same now. It is the first work of the day, before any painting. The twig has to be fresh, if it dries it splits and you cannot get the line. So there is a little tree behind the house and my grandson is always the one sent to break the branches, which he does very happily and very badly.
Somebody from Delhi once saw my bundle and asked if I could not simply use a 0.1 mm brush from the art shop. I said I could. I did not say I would.
The line from a chewed twig is not like the line from a brush. It drinks colour and gives it slowly. If your hand is not steady it will show, there is no help from the bristles. So the twig keeps me honest. When I have not painted for many days I feel it in the first twig, the line comes out shivering. That is my measure of practice.
Only difficulty is the colour. My twigs are good for black and for fine work, but for filling large areas the squirrel hair brush from my mother's time is still doing duty, and it is now more thread than hair. I have not found anybody here who makes them. If any of you know a person, kindly tell me.
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The chewing and rolling on stone part stays with me. I work with paper, and there's a similar thing with bone folders and teabags, you make the tool from what's around you and it becomes part of the work in a way a bought one never does. A bundle tied with thread, cut back and remade, is a nicer object than any brush roll I've seen. Does the neem matter, or is it just what grows there?
The question about the neem is the right one to ask, I think. A material that grows in your own courtyard already carries the place in it before you make a single mark. I feel the same about the salt water I develop my prints in. It is only water, but it is this water, and the paper knows the difference somehow.
Cutting the tip back and making it again is the part I love. Nothing wasted, nothing kept past its use.
That is nicely said ji, the paper knowing the difference. I have not worked with prints but I understand what you mean. When we mix our pigments the water also matters, from the well near us or the hand pump, and my mother would say the older water from the well gives a deeper black. I used to think it is only her habit, but now I feel the same. Your salt water and my well water, both are doing the same work. Where do you do your printing, kindly?
Both, ji. Neem is what grows here, in every courtyard, so it is what we take. But it also has its own nature. The wood is soft enough to roll on the stone without splitting, and the tip holds the line for a good while before going blunt. Bamboo is harder and lasts longer but the tip is a little stiff, it does not soften the same way in the mouth. So for the very fine line I keep to neem, and use bamboo for the broader work.
Your bone folder and teabag, that is the same understanding. The tool made by the hand knows the hand. A bought brush never learns anything.