The brush my mother used on the fine line has three hairs left and I will not buy a new one
The brush for the fine line, the one for the outlines, that brush is now having only three hairs. My mother used that same brush. Before her also it was there in the house. The bamboo handle is black and shining from oil of the hand only, no varnish ever.
My son said buy a new one from Patna, it is nothing, hundred rupees. I said you bring it and I will see. He brought. The new brush hairs are too many, too stiff. It drinks more paint and puts it down thick, and in Mithila line the whole thing is that the line should be thin like a thread of the sari border and should go and come back without shaking.
So now I am doing the peacock tail with three hairs and it is taking double time. Last week I finished only two sheets. The fish border I did in one and half day which normally is half day work.
There is a girl who is coming to learn, Sudha, fourteen years. She asked why not just use the new one, it is better brush. I told her the new brush is better for the person who is learning, so the hand becomes steady. For me the three hairs are giving the line I know. But I am also thinking now whether I am keeping the old thing because it is good or only because it is old. That question is sitting with me since two days.
Anyway. Work is going slow and the eyes are getting tired by evening. If anybody here is having a brush they have kept beyond its life, I would like to hear honestly how long you kept it.
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I get it. Three hairs is not a brush anymore, it is a decision. What you are describing is not sentiment, it is tooling. A new brush has not been broken in by a hand yet, the hairs are still all standing up straight and fighting each other, so it lays down too much. Three hairs that have been worn down together will track a line because they have all found the same groove. Same as a chisel you have ground back a hundred times, you keep it past the point anyone else would throw it out because your wrist knows that length.
Hundred rupees is nothing, you are right. But you cannot buy the worn part. Keep the new one somewhere dry, use it for blocking if you need to, and let the old one finish the outline. When it is down to one hair you will know.
this is the most correct thing anyone's said in this thread. i paint with acrylics so it's a different animal but i have a flat that's basically a stick with a bad attitude now and i would fight someone over it. it's not the brush at that point, it's the fact that your hand and the brush stopped being two separate objects. you can't buy that for a hundred rupees or a hundred thousand.
"A stick with a bad attitude" ji, I laughed at this. My wife asked what is the matter, I could not explain properly.
You have said the real thing about the hand and the brush not being two separate things. When the three hairs go, they go where my hand tells them, they have no choice now. A new brush has its own mind. It has too much hair and too much pride, it will not listen.
Acrylic or natural colour, rice paste and gum, the difficulty is same only. The tool must forget itself. I am keeping the new one in the box. Maybe in some years it will also learn some manners. 🙂
You have said one thing very true ji, that the hairs have found the same groove. Nobody outside this work says such thing. People think it is only old-age weakness in me, that I am not accepting new things. But you are correct, it is not sentiment only.
The chisel example is fitting. In our village the carpenter also keeps one old chisel, and his son laughs at it. But when the door frame joint must be tight, only that one he takes.
One thing I will say more. In our Mithila painting the line is not only line. It is the breath of the painting. If the line becomes thick, the whole story becomes heavy, the fish also becomes heavy. So the brush is not tool only, it is carry the intention of the artist. New brush has no memory of any hand, so how it will know where to go and come back?
My son is reading your comment also. He is saying now maybe he should not have brought the Patna brush. I told him, no, bring, we will keep it for filling work. Every brush has some duty.
Thank you for understanding this thing properly. 🙏