Brush Styles

Different Shapes of Brushes

For watercolor there are many different types of brushes made for the different techniques, each do a certain task. 

Versatility

Round Brushes

The most versatile and most used brush is the round brush. The shape is useful for small details or broader strokes.  

Flat Brushes

These brushes aren't as versatile as round brushes but the can be used for both washes and linear strokes.  

Detail Work

Spotter Brushes

This brush is a small brush with short bristles for control, aka retouching brushes. 

Rigger Brushes

The rigger brush got the name "rigger" because they were/are used for painting the rigging on ships. Rigger brushes are are round brushes with long bristles. They can hold a lot of paint and are used for a fine point or continuous lines. 

Wash Work

Mop, Hake and Oval

These brushes are round brushes. They have large heads which are good for blending, using a lot of paint, or to cover a large area.

I use all these brushes and more! My personal favorite is the more detail oriented brushes because I like to do that type of paintings (most don't but I do!). I use spotter brushes for EVERYTHING. And when I say everything I mean everything. The background, foreground, the everything ground basically. Honestly, brush preference really depends on who you are as a person and your style preference, this is just to help you know what the main brushes are actually intended to be used for. You can really use them however you wish which is the cool thing. Cool thing about art is you just go with the flow, you don't have to use everything as specified by teachers or google or whatever. 

So do you.