Brush Facts for Kids

A hairbrush

A brush is a handy tool with lots of tiny bristles, wires, or other thin parts sticking out. Most brushes have a long part you hold, called the handle. The other end has the "head" where the bristles are. We use brushes for many things, like cleaning, making our hair look nice, painting, and much more!

Different Kinds of Brushes
- Brushes for Cleaning
- Paint Brushes: Your Creative Tools
  - How to Care for Your Paint Brushes
  - Sizes and Materials of Paint Brushes
    - Decorating Brushes: For Big Jobs
    - Artists' Brushes: For Fine Details
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Different Kinds of Brushes

Brushes come in all shapes and sizes, each made for a special job.

Brushes for Cleaning

Many brushes are made just for cleaning things. Think about your toothbrush, which cleans your teeth, or big brushes used to scrub floors. There are also brushes for cleaning bottles, clothes, and even toilets!

Paint Brushes: Your Creative Tools

Paint brushes are used to put ink or paint onto paper, canvas, or other surfaces. Even computers use "digital paintbrushes" to help artists create amazing pictures!

Paint brushes usually come in three main shapes:

Round: These brushes have long, close-together bristles. They can hold a lot of paint, which makes them great for painting large areas or for adding washes of color.
Flat: These brushes are good for spreading paint evenly across a surface.
Fan-shaped: These brushes help you mix different colors of paint right on your canvas or palette.

How to Care for Your Paint Brushes

Taking good care of your paint brushes helps them last longer and work better.

Clean them right away: Always clean paint off your brushes as soon as you finish using them. This is super important for oil and acrylic paints. If these paints dry on the brush, they can be very hard to remove and might even ruin the bristles.
Don't leave them soaking: Never leave your brushes sitting in water with the bristle end down. This can make the bristles bend and lose their original shape, making the brush hard to use next time.

Sizes and Materials of Paint Brushes

You can find brushes in many different sizes and made from various materials.

Decorating Brushes: For Big Jobs

Brushes used for painting and decorating rooms (like painting walls or furniture) are measured by how wide their head is. This measurement is usually in millimeters or inches.

Some common sizes you might see are:

In inches: 1/8", 1/4", 1/2", 1", 1½", 2", 3", 4".
In millimeters: 10 mm, 20 mm, 50 mm, 70 mm, 100 mm.

These brushes can have bristles made from natural materials or from synthetic (man-made) materials. The handles, which are the parts you hold, are often made of wood or plastic.

Artists' Brushes: For Fine Details

Artists' brushes usually have sizes given as numbers. However, there isn't one standard way to number them, so a size "2" from one brand might be slightly different from another.

The sizes go from very tiny (like 7/0, also called 0000000) to much larger (like 30). The most common sizes artists use are from 000 to 20.

The bristles can be natural, like soft animal hair or hog (pig) bristles. They can also be synthetic (man-made). Artists' brush handles are often wooden. Cheaper brushes might have plastic handles. Better quality wooden handles are usually finished smoothly, while some cheaper ones might be unfinished.