Da Vinci Brushes — A Legacy of Excellence in Artists' Brushes

Show Notes:

Order your exclusive da Vinci BoldBrush paintbrush set! https://brushoffer.com/collections/boldbrush

Learn the magic of marketing with us here at BoldBrush! https://www.boldbrushshow.com/

Get over 50% off your first year on your artist website with FASO: https://www.FASO.com/podcast/

---

We're starting off season 5 with an exciting collaboration with da Vinci brushes! Our guest today is Gregory Daniels, their North American importer. On this episode Gregory tells us all about the history of da Vinci as well as his own personal history growing up as part of a legacy of art material suppliers. He also talks about da Vinci's unyielding commitment to quality and ecology, as well as how the founder of da Vinci, Hansfried Defet, not only succeeded to attain his goal of making the best brushes in the world, but also made advances in technology to create a synthetic fiber that is virtually impossible to knock off. This then allowed the company to produce the highest quality vegan brushes alongside their meticulously crafted natural hair brushes. We also talk about what sets da vinci apart from other brush companies: their dedication to excellence and not cutting corners, or in this case hair, for the sake of profit. Gregory also tells us all about the amazing artisans at da Vinci who make every single brush by hand, and who maintain a high level of quality control to ensure that every brush they make is a work of art in itself. Whether you're a hobbyist or a professional artist, these brushes truly are the best in the world. This is part one of a two part series. In this episode we will be focusing mostly on oil painting brushes both natural bristle, as well as vegan and synthetic brushes. And finally, we also want to announce that da Vinci brushes and BoldBrush have teamed up to create paintbrush sets for our listeners! Simply visit brushoffer.com/collections/boldbrush so you can check out these amazing exclusive sets while you listen to the episode!

Follow Da Vinci on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davinci_artistbrushes_official/ https://www.instagram.com/davincibrushes_northamerica/

Check out their gorgeous website: https://www.davinci-defet.com/

Contact Gregory Daniels to get your catalogue!
https://gregorydanielsfinearts.com/
email: greg@gregdaniels.com

—

Transcript:

Greg Daniels: 0:00

What drew me to DaVinci was really the quality. So we were importing to DaVinci brushes with Steven. And he was so enthusiastic about them and you know, we're both retailers at this point. And he just told me I think these are the best brushes in the world. And he said the selection is like nothing I've ever seen. And that is true. We have the largest selection of brushes in the world. And also we have everything you know, oil painting, watercolor, or acrylic, but then a million other categories gilding sign painting pinstriping I could go on and on.

Laura Arango Baier: 0:40

Welcome to the BoldBrush show, where we believe that fortune favors the bold brush. My name is Laura Arango Baier, and I'm your host. For those of you who are new to the podcast. We are a podcast that covers art marketing techniques, and all sorts of business tips specifically to help artists learn to better sell their work. We interview artists at all stages of their careers, as well as others who are in careers tied to the art world in order to hear their advice and insights. We're starting off season five with an exciting collaboration with DaVinci brushes. Our guest today is Gregory Daniels, their North American importer. On this episode, Gregory tells us all about the history of the VINCI as well as his own personal history growing up as part of a legacy of art materials suppliers. He also talks about the Vinci's unyielding commitment to quality and ecology, as well as how the founder of Vinci homestreet effort not only succeeded to attain his goal of making the best brushes in the world, but also made advances in technology to create a synthetic fiber that is virtually impossible to knock off. The sun allowed the company to produce the highest quality vegan brushes alongside their meticulously crafted natural hair brushes. We also talk about what sets the VINCI apart from other brush companies, and that is their dedication to excellence and not cutting corners, or in this case here for the sake of profit. Gregory also tells us all about the amazing artisans at DaVinci who make every single brush by hand, and who maintain a high level of quality control to ensure that every brush they make is a work of art in itself. Whether you're a hobbyist or professional artists, these brushes truly are the best in the world. This is part one of a two part series. In this episode, we will be focusing mostly on oil painting brushes, both natural bristle as well as vegan and synthetic brushes. If you're listening to this episode, I highly recommend checking out the video version at BoldBrush show.com. So you can see exclusive clips of the factory as well as brush demonstrations. And finally, we also want to announce that the VINCI brushes and BoldBrush have teamed up to create paint brush sets for our listeners. Simply visit brush author.com forward slash collections forward slash BoldBrush. So you can check out these amazing exclusive sets while you listen to the episode. And now on with the show. Welcome Gregory to the BoldBrush show. How are you today?

Greg Daniels: 3:05

I'm fine. Thanks, Laura, for having me. I'm very happy to be here.

Laura Arango Baier: 3:09

Yes, that I'm so excited to have you on. Because I'm a huge fan of DaVinci brushes. I started using them when I was a student studying in Italy. And I can tell you that I still have the same brushes. And they're basically in the same exact shape that I bought them in which I am excited to talk about why? Because you know, we're going to talk a little bit more about that. But before we begin, do you mind giving us a little background about Vinci and your history?

Greg Daniels: 3:36

Sure, yes. Well, DaVinci is a factory brush factory in Nuremberg, Germany. And Nuremberg is kind of interesting in the art supply business, because you have a lot of factories there for pencils and brushes, it was an ancient crossroads, a trading center, if you will. So, you know, you have some companies favorite pastels to below. And a lot of other pencil companies as well as DaVinci all, you know, very, very nearby each other. So DaVinci started in about 1890. And the same family still owns the factory and is making the brushes. So how are we unique, we're unique in that we make every brush from start to finish from the raw material to the finished product. And the family is called the Defet family. And like a lot of things in Germany in World War Two, the factory was completely destroyed. And then in 1946 Humphrey depot who we all refer to as Mr. Defet, it took over as a 17 year old with his mother and they slowly rebuilt the factory. And he just died a few years ago and he was 90 years old. We had a incredible 90th birthday for him in Salzburg. And people came from all over the world that had been working with him for gosh, I guess he was in the brush trade, you know, over 70 years. So he was a great innovator in brush making both in natural hair brushes and, and synthetic brush making which we'll get into. But his whole goal was to make the highest quality brush that was built to last and be the specialists for specialists. So really a factory focused on making brushes for artists quality over quantity, and to make the best brush as possible. And that was his kind of driving force for over 70 years.

Laura Arango Baier: 5:26

That's incredible. And I think that's also very commendable, too because I think these days, it can be so so challenging for artists to find high quality, anything I mean, especially brushes, which is obviously it's like the thing we use the most when we paint, right? So I've had like, you know, the cheap, really cheap brushes that like will leave little strands in my in my painting, which is so crappy. So it's really wonderful to know that there are companies out there who really care and they like my Da Vinci brushes, they don't do that ever. Like they don't like leave little strands, which I love. So do you mind telling us a little bit about your background and how you got started with DaVinci brushes.

Greg Daniels: 6:11

What drew me to DaVinci was really the quality. My family we had an art supply store in Los Angeles for over 50 years. We started in my grandfather started in Chelsea and 1920 floor and Manhattan. And he worked for a company called devone Reynolds. And they were the largest manufacturer of art supplies, possibly in the world. Then they had a huge factory in Chicago, huge factory in New York. They started in 1755. So company was actually older than America. And so he started working for them. And they immediately sent him out because he just graduated from college and sent them all over the United States and Canada, Mexico, Cuba. And he just traveled by train all all over North America really selling this huge catalog of art supplies. So that's how we got started. So we had our store for you know, 1941 to 1996 and 1996. You know, we sold the business. And we had been importing the brushes directly. Our store was called HG Daniels company in Los Angeles. And we had been importing them with a very famous art supply store, New York Central Art Supply in in Manhattan, who started in 1905 and was run by the Steinberg family, most notably in the last generation, Steven Steinberg, who is a very famous figure in the art supply industry. And with artists, so we were importing to DaVinci brushes with Steven, and he was so enthusiastic about them. And you know, we're both retailers at this point. And he just told me I think these are the best brushes in the world. And he said the selection is like nothing I've ever seen. And that is true, we have the largest selection of brushes in the world. And also we have everything, you know oil painting, watercolor, or acrylic, but then a million other categories gilding sign painting pinstriping, I could go on and on. It's a It's, we have an enormous catalog. So we do have a brand new catalog, prints catalog, you can also go on the DaVinci site, which is DaVinci hyphen def, def e t.com. And download the new catalog. I think it's under the media tab. But we also have a physically beautifully printed kits catalog. And it's like an encyclopedia of brushes. So if there are any painters out there in the US or Canada that want to get a hold of one of those, just email me Greg at Greg, Greg, Greg daniels.com. And we can send one out because it's really, I think it's wonderful to have a print catalog. And you know, it has a front section on everything you could want to know about brushes, brush making the manufacturing, the hairs, the synthetic hairs, how we put the brushes together, and then the sections of brushes. So if you you know, it's really like a foundation class for brushes. So I encourage anybody listening to contact us, and we'll get you out a catalog.

Laura Arango Baier: 9:20

Awesome. Yeah. And we'll also include those links in the show notes. So can you tell us about the factory because I know the factory. The DaVinci factor is really particular and it has a very unique way in which it's been put together and its location when telling us more about it.

Greg Daniels: 9:41

Yeah, it's really unique. I mean, we you know, we had an old post World War Two factory with the debit family also owned an art gallery. They started in 1958. So they were also representing artists and art shows and showing artists at their own gallery and there factories full of art that they've collected over the years. So that original factory is now a cultural center. It's got two large galleries, it's got I think about 30 artists studios where artists can do a residency there and get a free studio for free for a certain period of time. And there's just a lot of activity there. So instead of selling the old building, they made it into gallery space and studio space for artists. So in 2006, we built a brand new factory from the ground up. And the goal was to make the first eco friendly completely green brush factory nonpolluting. So that's what they did, they built a modern brush factory, made the old brush factory at the cultural center. And then in 2013, they built a second brush factory. So now there are two separate factories. One is for all the natural hairbrush making by hand. And some synthetic brushes that are made by hand are also done there. And then we have the second factory, where we're making synthetic brushes, some innovations we've made by a machine with, so it's kind of like half machine, half by hand. But it allowed us to make better student brushes at a lower price for artists who are just starting out, we found that, you know, a lot of a lot of ours brushes that are for beginners or just just weren't very good quality, and it might have turned people off to painting when they started because the brushes just weren't very good, frankly. So the goal has been to, you know, build the highest quality brush. All of our handles are from sustainable forestry, in, in Europe, mainly in Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia. And then the handles are shaped for us in Northern Italy by, by a gentleman we've worked with for a family I should say, for decades and decades. So we're really trying to make every brush, you know, as well as we can. And we'll talk about more about the specific oil brushes and watercolor brushes later, and all the other things. But that's been the goal. And building these two new factories has been incredible. Because, you know, it really, I've been very impressed with the, you know, the investment they've made into sustainability, and making non polluting factory. And, and it's, you know, it's makes me proud to work with them. They also, you know, to have these incredible machines for brush making, they have a machine shop in the basement of one of the factories, so all the machines, we have brush making, we make the machines, so none of the machines we have have been purchased. And that makes some of the things we can do with blending synthetic hair and making brush heads. Very innovative that no No other manufacturer has. And the big, you know, the biggest, I think the biggest point is that, you know, the factory is owned by the Defet family still and the Meijer family who's been working in the factory for over 30 years. So they're the CO owners. And we haven't been bought or sold. And what we've seen in the art supply business that's unfortunate, is starting in about 1982. We've had just, you know, 40 years of consolidation. So before that, you know, brands would be competing against each other, and they'd be trying to make the best brush possible or the best oil paint possibly the best. Whatever Canvas, you know, so there was a sense of pride, you had a lot of family on businesses, kind of artisanal businesses. Everybody making things the best they could and when smaller companies started being bought up and bought up and bought up. Obviously, what happens is the quality kind of starts going down, maybe you're not you don't you know, they're not manufacturing the brushes where they used to be. And, you know, as you get further and further down the line, you have kind of people looking at brushes on spreadsheets and saying, Oh, we're not selling enough of this, and let's eliminate this line and let's eliminate that. And it's not really with the artist in mind. So we've never done that. But that's the way our industry has changed. We're one of the last independently owned manufacturers of art supplies that aren't under kind of a larger umbrella. And you know, generally when you walk into an art supply store, you have a lot of brush brands. And most of those brush brands are manufactured in India, by one manufacturer and in particular, China, Sri Lanka, some in Korea. So you have a lot of brands where they're not making any brushes and They're, you know, they're just choosing different handle colors, and the name is being stamped on the brush, just as kind of these are just kind of marketing companies more than they are brush makers. And so, you know, I think when you're buying brushes and artists, and you want it to last, and you want the quality to be there, think about that, like, is this company actually making this item. Because generally, the companies that are making their own materials, you know, these are much higher quality, the artist is going to have a better experience. And, you know, it's, it's better to support this kind of family business, where people are really putting generations into the know how, of how to make a great brush. I mean, I think one of the things we talked about previously, Laura was, you know, eventually you have 40, or 50, brush makers, the head brush maker is a woman. And, you know, we have specialists for every kind of type of brush. So the small sizes for detail, or miniature painting, you have women that are just very, you know, good at making these brushes, maybe they have smaller hands, and they're just or the ability to do this, then we have a couple gentlemen that just specialize in filberts for oil painting, because making a filbert is the hardest shape to get everything by hand to the right lengths. And to taper it correctly, you know, this is all achieved by hand in our factory. So the shape you see there are no no scissors is ever used to cut a brush into shape. All that is achieved by hand. So that you have, you know, for hog bristle, you have split ends, just like in our hair, which is called flags, and that's what you know, holds on to and distributes the paint correctly. And so generally, you know, the brush makers, it's generations in the family, it's a real family trade, it takes three years to be a brush maker to join the guild of brush makers, and to qualify to become a you know, a master brush maker at DaVinci. So, you know, if you just pick up and move a factory somewhere because it's been bought, you just can't find brush makers growing on tree base, I mean, generally add to Vinci, you know, you'll see the team of brush makers, and maybe the uncles over there, and maybe their grandparents or their parents, or a cousin have also been brush makers at DaVinci it's a real, it's a it's a trade that goes through generations families take great pride in it, it's well paid job. And you know, it's really specialized. So it's hard to do it well. And if you have this kind of, you know, continuity in the brush makers, the results are, are much much better.

Laura Arango Baier: 17:50

I 100% agree and I love that, you know, it's, it feels like it's a big company and it technically it is, but it also has that healing of the artisanal like, group of people who really care who really want to do the best job that they can, you know, making these brushes. And I think that's really what sets DaVinci apart because there's so few companies that can really boast that amount of history in every brush that they make, it's like it's also kind of mind bending to think like oh my, my brushes were made by this person maybe I have older DaVinci brushes that were probably made by that person's grandfather. You know, that's so freakin cool. The other awesome thing is like if I like if my children become painters, they would probably be able to use my same brushes because DaVinci brushes they last so long like you know you I personally I want to buy more because I love them. But also I love that the ones that already have I can trust I can know that they're gonna last longer as I take care of them then the amount of time that will be live which is really great.

Greg Daniels: 19:05

Well, yeah, I mean, you know the brush has kind of a certain architecture and you know, like I said we use only the beautiful handles that we make sure are balanced correctly. We don't have any lightweight handles that aren't properly balanced. And the ferals we use which is what connects the the brush head to the handle. You know we generally use just nickel plated brass, some gold plated brass and a few series we use silver ferals so these are like the best money can buy. The other thing we do with natural hair is we we set the the hair deeper below the federal so the invisible part below the federal that you can't see. And that allows that by setting it deeper. It allows the brush to have more flexibility, retain kind of a stiffness to and also maintain its shape. Over time, and that really allows the brush to last longer, I mean a way to, you know, if you're a corporation and you're making a brush, you know, if you don't set the, the hair or the synthetic, deeply in the feral, you know, maybe you can save 20 or 30%. But the brush is going to be flimsy, and it's not going to last very long or retain its shape. So there are a lot of ways to kind of cheat, you know, to make to be more profitable. But we just never do that. I mean, one of the things that really drew me to the company was, I first went there in 1997, for a visit, and I was written, you know, a proposal to be the North American importer. And I was blown away by all the art in the factory, the original art, and it was just everywhere. And I realized, as I got to meet the people, everybody that worked, there were art lovers. And as I got to know them better, you know, it's a lot of kind of art, music and literature people. Maybe people, you know, that love the humanities, that are running this company, and I and that's a reflection of the people Mr. Defet had hired. Yes, you know, we have to be business people as well. But I generally saw that there was a love of art and the materials. You know, they're always developing new things. And that really, really attracted me to the company, I hadn't really seen that. With the other companies I was interviewing with. So I, I became the sole distributor of North American importer in 2001. And I began working with them in 1998. So I guess this is my 25th year with them. And I'm working with the same, I'm working with the same people. Of course, some younger people have come in, but it's been just kind of one vision of quality. And just working hard. And, you know, when I started, they were in seven or eight countries, and that was in 1998. And now they're in 95 countries. So it's been a huge amount of growth. And just by kind of focusing on quality and, and really, I think the message that, you know, Mr. Defet, it started with post 1940s. We've just kind of stuck to that. And his wife, Mrs. Defet, it was an artist, a painter, and a great patron of the arts as well. And she was very inspiring. So their vision, kind of in the people they've hired, you know, has made this kind of a wonderful company to work with, and I think very unique. And, you know, they've done a great job of bringing younger people up through the company. I mean, currently, you know, Herman Meyers, our CEO, and Chairman started, he was 27. And, you know, he's been there over 30 years and and now his son, Tobias is CO CEO, and Julian differed from the depot family. And they're both in there, I think Tobias is about 30 and Julian's maybe in his 30s. So we have, we have a great secession plan. We have like younger people in the company that are co CEOs. And, and so you know, it's really, it's been a pleasure to work with them. And, and, you know, my background was, you know, I grew up in Los Angeles, and we had this art supply store for decades and decades. And at the time, from like, I'd say, 1941 till late 80s. We were the largest art supply store in terms of sales in the United States. So we also had a store in San Diego. And then pearl paint surpassed us at some point in the 80s being coming to the bigger retailer. But you know, so when I was a teenager, I started working, there was about eight or nine, my as has had my father. And it was a very urban store, it was in downtown LA. And we had the Shannara artists too, which is a very famous art school in American history, if you Google it, which Disney later bought and turned into Cal Arts and Valencia, and we had Art Center, and which is now in Pasadena, and we had the Otis art school, Otis Parsons. And so I, every summer was driving the delivery truck, we had three delivery trucks that would go out full of art materials in every direction, and I love this job. And so I was a teenager going into all these painters studios, very famous painters, unknown painters, aspiring painters, and, you know, and I was a musician, I was a bass player and played in a lot of kind of the, you know, early 80s, kind of punk rock bands and then went into soul jazz bands and, and so, you know, I was right up my alley. I was just visiting and meeting all these painters and kind of, you know, really developed love of painting and which I found with the DaVinci team, you know, half the time I'm we're talking about which opening is where and are we going to go see it and talking about galleries and museums. So, you know, it was very exciting to land in a place where I found it found like minded people, all who had great product knowledge that was just incredible. And, you know, I loved in the store selling oil paint, so I had studied the differences between every brand of oil paints, you know, and, and watercolor paints and how they were all different. And so, so my background, I don't know, somehow led me to this wonderful company, and became the North American importer. So

Laura Arango Baier: 25:38

that's awesome. Um, and actually, before we touch more on the brushes, how can people contact you to sell DaVinci brushes? Say for example, if they have a store, like an art store, and they're listening to this podcast, how can they, you know, sell?

Greg Daniels: 25:54

Yeah, that's a very good question. My company's called Gregory Daniels Fine Arts and, you know, our customers are in the US, Canada, and just Gregory Daniels Fine Arts, Greg, Greg daniels.com. Our phone number is 323-620-5507. For anybody who wants to call, but yeah, you can just contact me directly, and we can set up a wholesale account for you. And thank you for asking that. Because that's important information.

Laura Arango Baier: 26:24

Yes, yes, it is. Especially because I've also noticed, you know, when I go into art stores, they have such a wide range of brushes. And sometimes I find it kind of weird when like I walk in, and I don't see the specific brushes that I want or like, it's all just like these big confusing, like, signs and all of these different brushes, in the end, to me just all look the same. So if I'm looking for like a Vinci brushes that can be like, I'm always like, looking like, Okay, where's the little DaVinci sign? You know?

Greg Daniels: 26:58

Yeah, that's very true. Because really, there are just two or three of us left, I'm not going to name the other companies, but that are making all the brushes, you know, in our own factories and whatever home country they're in. In Europe. Yeah, you do have, I mean, I often walk into an art supply store. And you may see like, a wall of brushes. And you may see, you know, three white synthetic brushes from different brands. And they're basic, it's basically the same fiber. And with a different color handle, it's the same brush. So you see so much duplication, or you see, you know, one brand may have three lines of synthetic hog bristle, but then you look in the store, and they don't have any, you know, they don't have a Kalinsky Oil Brush or they don't have you know, we make a very unique black sable brush for oil painting. So there's a lot of there can be like a huge selection, but it can be a lot of duplication where they're missing key traditional brushes and modern synthetics that we make that are different. And so that's what we try to do, I mean, we really kind of work differently in that a lot of the corporate brands have these huge displays, and they don't have that many brushes, you know, that can be 18 inches wide. And, and, you know, we our brush racks are, you know, like eight inches wide or 11 inches wide. And that's to help the retailer have a kind of more of a selection in the smaller space. So, you know, I guess we're doing a little contrarian thinking on that the way we operate. But we want to you know, we want to give the retailer a great selection of a bunch of unique brushes in a very small space. So yeah, we're very we're very different that way from most of the brush brands in the artists play industry.

Laura Arango Baier: 28:44

Yeah, yeah. And I think I appreciate that a lot because that makes it so much easier to like go into an art store and actually find the the DaVinci brushes and instead of like getting distracted by like that big big ask sign that has like a bunch of nothing on it you know, it's like maybe like a really goofy like painting or something and then like all the writing I don't even look at that. I'm touching all the brushes and I'm like, Why did they all feel the same? But actually I think now is a really good moment. You think they can continue?

Greg Daniels: 29:15

Well yes, there is there is a lot of duplication that we try to make, you know, with with our natural hair brushes. I mean, you know, we try to use only the best like when you're buying natural hair, whether it's hog bristle or Kolinsky Sable or black sable or ox hair, whatever kind of materials you're using, you can buy these in different quality levels. So, we generally with all of our brushes generally always buy the highest quality we can and we have kind of ancient sources for for the for this material that Mr. Defet had developed over, you know, 50 years, 60 years. So we always try to buy the best and then maybe some times we'll buy the second quality as well, so that we can make an alternative for artists with a brush that's a little less expensive. So let's say we have, you know, our, our Maestro Colin's watercolor brushes, which are the our top top of the line brushes. You know, we also buy them, one called the Harbin Kolinsky, which is about 40% less. So that the artists can have an alternative, you know, maybe they want to buy a size 10 Round well in the maestro, it's pretty expensive. But if you buy the Harbin size 10, you know, it could be 40% less in a store. So that's kind of our guiding philosophy, we're always buying the best that we can. And we dress there ourselves. So most brush manufacturers buy the hair in a bundle from a middleman. So we actually you know, we'll buy the tails. And for making sable and squirrel brushes, we'll buy the ears because it grows very long out of the ox hair years. And and then we clean and dress the hair ourselves in the factory. So we know what quality we're getting. And it's we have quality control. And we also have a digital very expensive digital microscope that we can examine, take out all the broken hairs in the natural hair, a brush makings. Now, I should say that, you know, no animals are, to my knowledge are killed for brush making. It's a byproduct industry. So the brush makers, it's not a big enough industry, we get the leftover parts, generally. So we get the tail to make you know sable and squirrel brushes. The hog bristle usually comes from the back of the hog. And so that's kind of just to be upfront and honest about that. That's that's, you know, that's how it works. But we we you know, in the starting in the 1970s Mr. Jeff it really put his attention on synthetic brush making and, and that's a whole new another chapter where he wanted to make the best synthetic brushes in the world and has in the 90s up until the 80s You know this synthetic brush making was just kind of one strand of nylon one thickness. They weren't great, you'd go into an art supply store. And it might just say for you know, I remember this as a teenagers. And it would just say for oil, acrylic and watercolor and they'd be no information. And the brushes just weren't very good. So Mr. Defet, it started DaVinci started experimenting, making multi diameter synthetics that was the first thing. So three and five diameters of thickness. So you'd have three or five different thicknesses of nylon or whatever the material was tack on some kind of synthetic material. And he started kind of what he said would spin him spinning them together in that the Ficus would be on the outside and the thinnest would be on the inside. And by doing this, it kind of started this capillary motion where water was being water or pain was coming up and being held into the brush and then being distributed more evenly. And he started shaping brushes, specifically for synthetic brush making. So sometimes if you make a synthetic brush and you try to shape it just like the oil painting brush or the or the watercolor brush natural hair, you have to make different allowances for the thicknesses, the shaping, so it before it performs better as a as a synthetic brush. So we have like three lines. These were the first ones we have the Nova, which comes in a short and long handle. And this was the first brush we did with three diameter synthetic it's still all over the world and Nova it's got a green handle. It's a golden synthetic. And it's one of our most you know, affordable brushes. And I know you use that brush you told me about some Italy years ago.

Laura Arango Baier: 33:55

Oh yes, I bought them. I bought a whole set I did like these are filberts. And they have lasted. God I've been using them for like five years and the shape. It's still nice and springy. Which, Ah, it's so nice. I don't get that with other brushes. And they've maintained their shapes so well to which I recommend these. Also, you know, I've personally used them and I think they're some of the best for anyone who's starting out. And I like their good price.

Greg Daniels: 34:25

Yeah, yeah, they are. And so the Nova was the first one and then we kind of took the multiparameter synthetic brush making manufacturing a bit further with shorthand BoldBrush called Cosmic topspin for watercolor. And that's still my best selling brush in the United States, five diameters and it really holds a lot of water. And if you haven't used it and you've used other synthetics, please try this brush. And then the other five diameter construction was the top of curl brush and that was aimed more acrylic and oil paint Here's, and you know, this brush comes from size one up to size 50. And this is a lot, you'll find this a lot in the DaVinci reign, we make the smallest sizes all the way up to huge sizes. So it's a huge range of sizes. And that's just you know, been developed by artists requests over the years. So the type of grill is really a brush that can move a lot of paint for both oil and Acrylic Painters for Acrylic Painters, because of the construction it also when you mix with water holds a ton of paint and water and distributes evenly and you can cover a lot of ground with it. And for both of those, we also make what's called modeler, brushes, which is a specialty of ours which is kind of a flat wash or varnish brush, and the flat wash brush the series 5080 or watercolor is one of our most popular brushes in the Cosmo topspin line in that series. 5040 is the top acrylic version. And these brush, they'll they'll leave just completely smooth strokes, we have violin varnishes that use them. If you want no strokes, these are great brushes for you. And, you know, we took that then it's another step further, we came out with two new lines that were five diameter synthetics but we developed a crimped fiber. So if you look at it in my under a microscope, it's a wavy fiber. So we made these wavy fiber brushes, which nobody else had ever done before. And the watercolor version is called the cast and nail. This brush has been tremendously popular all over the world. Watercolor guasha artists illustration, and the whole urban sketching movement, who we supported right from the beginning. And they use this brush like crazy. And if you'd ever told me 10 years ago that a quill brush, the shape of a quill brush would be my number one best seller, I would have said there's no way that will ever happen. But it has. And so we make a tremendous expanded line of quill quill brushes for watercolors both in Kolinsky traditional petite grey squirrel, Cosmo topspin and the cast Teneo. And the crimped fiber construction kind of took the whole thing a step further. And I also think that going back to the brush makers, we have three or four women that make the quilt brushes to very difficult, traditional old fashioned shape to make, it's got more belly, it comes to a sharper point. But then to twist the copper wire properly. It's a very difficult brush to make. And so we have some real specialized women that make this brush the quills in particular and that's all I do is make quills. So if you haven't tried any of the DaVinci quills and you're working in water media, fluid acrylic, please try them. And then we made another brush called degrees yo for oil painters that is our newest kind of crimped fibres synthetic brush, really just I mean Acrylic Painters are using it too, but really just aimed at oil painters. And we've had a tremendous success with it. It's kind of like it's, you know, maybe we started eight years ago, 10 years ago, but it's kind of slowly and slowly and slowly as oil painters use it. They found it's the best synthetic oil painting brush in the market. And when we made these brushes, we didn't want to make Casanare we didn't want to make a faux squirrel brush. Or with Grigio we didn't want to make synthetic Mungus brush, because all the other manufacturers had these categorization of brushes. But generally they're just buying the same fiber from the same place. And the brushes are kind of all the same. And that's fine. But we took much longer to develop these brushes because we wanted to develop this this new technology with the fibers and the way we blend them the tapering the different lengths, the different thicknesses, crimped fiber, so we don't call them you know, faux squirrel or synthetic mangas for that reason, because we think they're really different that we think our synthetic brushes are very unique. This year, we came out with another one called the kala nail. And that's something we've worked on for five years. It's synthetic Kalinsky brush for watercolors and, and oil painters will be using it in small sizes too, for detail. And with this, we mixed straight fibers and crimped fibers and again, did the five diameters and this is kind of, you know, something DaVinci developed a way to do this to blend these fibers that I, you know, we have a big trade show at Frankfurt every year. People come from all over the world and I've had other brush manufacturers come to me, and they said, We haven't been able to knock off those brushes. Oh, we haven't been able to knock off the molds. And we're like, Well, that's good. So we We definitely have some trade secrets and how we make them and how we also how we kind of create a base at the bottom synthetic brushes, so they have more of a foundation. But that's something that's kind of a secret, as well. You know, it's, it's been amazing, it's been amazing, it's we have really have something different and unique. And, you know, obviously, I'm a little biased, but I think that, that I don't think anybody else has made these strides and synthetic brush making was really, Mr. Defet, it started spearheading the project, kind of in the 70s, and then the 80s. And we've just kept progressing. And we've even made a line of brushes for students and people on a, you know, a lower budget called the Eco student lines. So these are still very good lines still made, you know, with, with all the ecological things I've talked about, and we make them all in the factory. And you know, these are like the Da Vinci Jr, the Da Vinci fit the Forte basic, we have a long handed line called the college. So these are great lines, if you're just getting started, and you really don't want to spend a lot of money, but you maybe you don't want to make a brush by a brush. That's, it's not, you know, that's not great, because we like I said, we found that if you buy a very cheap brush, who knows where it's made, a lot of times artists use it, they're just beginning, they're just taking their first class, and they don't get very good results from the brush. And that's what turns people off from keeping going and pursuing their, their, you know, their painting for their pleasure for perhaps a future career, you know, or just being an inspiring weekend, you know, aspiring weekend painter. We still want them to start with good brushes, even if they're on a low budget or they're a student.

Laura Arango Baier: 41:54

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's great. Because like, personally, you know, as an artist, when I first started using oil paint, I think it was maybe like 16. And I remember using these super cheap brushes and oil painting is already really, really difficult. But like, I didn't understand how hard it could be how much harder it could be with the wrong brushes. So eventually, I did obviously, invest in better brushes. So actually, some of my first brushes were DaVinci brushes. And I'm so grateful that for the price, you get such great quality and I love that the ethics you know, they go beyond just like, yes, it's a great brush. It's like no, this is a great brush with a deep history and with deep love and care that's been put in every single strand of hair, which that's incredible. I my hat's

Greg Daniels: 42:51

off to yeah, really ethical manufacturing. The ethical manufacturing really, really appealed to me when I started with them and and their love of art and for artists, and that they had their gallery and they were, you know, showing artists, I think they started in 1958 their gallery. So it's been going now for, you know, 60 plus years. Yeah, yeah. It's incredible.

Laura Arango Baier: 43:18

BoldBrush We inspire artists to inspire the world because creating art creates magic, and the world is currently in desperate need of magic. BoldBrush provides artists with free art marketing, creativity and business ideas and information. This show is an example. We also offer written resources, articles and a free monthly art contest open to all visual artists. We believe that fortune favors the bold brush. And if you believe that to sign up completely free at BoldBrush show.com. That's B O LD B R U S H show.com. The BoldBrush Show is sponsored by FASO. Now more than ever, it's crucial to have a website when you're an artist, especially if you want to be a professional in your career. Thankfully, with our special link faso.com forward slash podcast, you can make that come true. And also get over 50% off your first year on your artists website. Yes, that's basically the price of 12 lattes in one year, which I think is a really great deal considering that you get sleek and beautiful website templates that are also mobile friendly e commerce print on demand in certain countries, as well as access to our marketing center that has our brand new art marketing calendar. And the art marketing calendar is something that you won't get with our competitor. The art marketing calendar gives you day by day step by step guides on what you should be doing today right now in order to get your artwork out there and seen by the right eyes so that you can make more sales this year. So if you want to change your life and actually meet your sales goal this year, then start now by going to our special link faso.com forward slash podcast that's FASO.com/podcast. So you know Now that we know a little bit more about the you know, the the control, you know, like the the hair control because I know you guys like you said you have a microscope and you actually look to see that the hairs are all perfect. I think that's a great moment to talk about the natural bristle oil brushes, which as an oil painter, I am so curious, you know, you guys have such beautiful lines brushes. But tell us about first like the the best, absolute best ones?

Greg Daniels: 45:29

Well, it's there are you know, there's there, we make a huge range of natural hair brushes. So I'll start there. I mean, first we have the Klinsky oil brushes, which are, you know, all handshape we're using only the best quality Kolinsky Sable. And of course, the oil pressures are shaped completely differently than the watercolor brushes. Because the watercolor you want the big belly to hold the water. And with oil painting brushes, you know, you each brush has to be shaved particularly just for oil brushes. And so here we make you know classic shapes, we make a round, we make a bright we make a fill, but we also make a flat, which not many people do. And these are just referred to as our Klinsky oil brushes, they have maroon handles, and these for detail work and holding it edge building appoint anything you want to do detail wise, these are excellent, excellent brushes. And you know, we make them all from size, double zero up to 30. So it's a huge range of sizes. And I think most manufacturers don't make anything above a size 16. So we have, you know, very large sizes as well, which we sell to quite a few well known artists and the large filberts especially. So that's number one. We then make a brush called the Black sable brush. And this is very unique to us. It's a bit thicker, more rugged than Kolinsky Sable, it's not as expensive so you can get bigger sizes. It's a little thicker in the you put your you turn the brush sideways and you kind of pinched the the belly of the flat or the filbert. Same with clean skin you feel there's that body there. That's an important way to kind of is this a good brush? You look at it straight on. But then if you turn it sideways and kind of grab it there you can see does this have the proper body? So I have all these old catalogs from my grandfather from the 1920s and 30s. And from Deville and Reynolds, where he worked and they all had these black sable brushes in there. So when I started with DaVinci you know I said oh you make black sable brushes and they said oh yeah, they're, you know, very popular with portrait painters blending out, hog bristle stroke, blending on the palate, but just as an all around oil painting brush. It gives you a brushstroke that feels like hog bristle, but it doesn't mark the paint layers as significantly as hog bristle. And also sometimes people use the hog bristle, they'll use the black sable to blend out some of the strokes if they want to if they're doing something more, you know, realism or portrait painting. So this is a very unique brush test and we use a different hair. I mean I kind of revived the popularity of this brush in the 2000s and and a lot of other manufacturers started making it you know Windsor Newton in particular made one called the Eclipse but they use the a much softer hair it was like almost a different hair and they call it the black Sable. And it was too soft for oil painting. And they ended up discontinuing it. So even though it was also called Black Sable, it was completely different from ours, we use it you know we use a higher quality hair. And to my knowledge, we're the only manufacturer making this brush in this way. This brush comes round and bright and filbert, and it also comes up to size 30 And all those Mr. Def that used to always say the filbert number 12 series 1845 size 12 he thought was the most stable brush and you need one of the greatest oil painting brushes we made in the whole range. So it kind of it kind of lies in between the Kolinsky Sable brush and get some of the benefits of that. And the classic hog bristle brush. You know where you're seeing all the strokes of course that the classic hog bristle examples are you know, Van Gogh is number one, you know, you see all the strokes in those paintings. Lucien Freud you know in the figurative work, I mean, ocean Freud is so interesting because his early work, you know, like the painting wood with his his first wife holding the cat it's so famous and you see all the detail of her hair and her features. And you know that all this early work was painted with sable brushes, both brown short handled brushes and oil sable brushes. And then, you know, he made this huge career shift and the, I guess I don't quote me on this, but I think it was around 1960 Maybe a little bit later, but where he, you know, became Lucien Freud that we more know with the, you know, the giant nudes and a figurative painting. And you know, this is all work with hog bristle. And, you know, one of my favorite films about an artist the last 20 years was that you can get on DVD as David Hockney a bigger picture. And this is where David Hockney went back to his, the English countryside where he grew up and he was paid, I think he had just turned 70 And did these giant canvases or, you know, hundreds of canvases that he pieced together into giant paintings. And I like this work of David Hockney post 70 years old, more than any of his earlier work. And what's interested, interesting about this video is you can see all the brushes he's using, and huge amount of brushes, and generally all hog bristle, we make a line of very traditional hog bristle brushes called the maestro with the blonde handle. And these, to my knowledge are the last hand interlocked hog bristle brushes that anybody makes in the world. And so it's a whole thing where you have to set the curve of the natural bristle together and tie it. It's all done by hand. And so this is a very specialized line. And I noticed that you know he uses a lot of those brushes in the video, especially in filberts and big filberts. And that's our Maestro hog bristle line. What we sell more in America and in in Europe really is the maestro too. So this line is made with exactly the same hog bristle quality wise it's just we double boil it and then it's heat set to interlock so it's a little we can make the brush it's not quite as so much hand tying and hand done. So it's it's the same quality personal just makes it more affordable. And we're artists and this is a it's a very famous brush from us. It's got a black and red handle. Beautiful handle called the maestro two. And this comes in many shapes and comes round bright, lat short, filbert, long Filbert and we make a scenic painting brush with it kind of an old fashioned seeming scenic painting brush. And I'm trying to think what about other shapes there are a few other shapes. And then we make Oh, we make a fresco round. And we also make a giant range of modelers with this so so you know you might see these brushes and think well that looks like a chip brush from a hardware store. But it's actually the same quality of bristle in you know flat brushes that you can buy in a modeler from 20 millimeters, just under one inch, three quarters of an inch, all the way up to 500 millimeters which would be 20 inches. So I mean literally from this big to this big. And we do that with most of our modelers. And so these are just beautiful, huge brushes. And they're very unique. There's a Los Angeles artists name Alison Van Pelt uses these huge five series five hundreds you can see her work online. And but we sell a lot of the large large modelers and, and this is not business where we make a lot of money. It's just that we want to provide artists with these huge brushes and these crazy requests we get, you know, we have a lot of very famous artists that use these two lines of hog bristle brush and that's that's all they use, due to the kind of quality then we also make a natural versus a whole line of ox hairbrushes called pillow the blue. This these are this is softer hair. Sometimes a lot of Acrylic Painters actually use this too because they can kind of drag a lot of paint across the canvas. And these brushes are very, very popular in Italy. It's a very traditional technique. And that's where we sell the most of them for certain, but we do have them you know as well in America and we have kind of a niche market for people who use this disc softer hair brush for oil painting. And then lastly we have badger hair brushes for oil painting. And we make I think the largest line of badger fans and badger blenders we make the Badger blenders with three rows and five rows. Series 96 Is the five row series 90 Nice three row you know the most famous use you can see of the series 96 brush with the five row badger blender or softener is the Gerhard Richter paintings of the, you know, the 60s and 70s, the 80s where you have that soft blur at the kind of we do almost looks like you have to squint your eyes and you know, the gray paintings of that he's famous for airplane seats and things and, and certainly, you know, the famous famous one of the candle that a lot of people know my age from the cover of the Sonic Youth Daydream nation album. And you'll, you'll look at the candle and has this soft focus and, you know, he he used the DaVinci badger blenders for this kind of effect. So we said we do sell a lot of these brushes that comes from 40 millimeters up to 120 millimeters wide. And you know, we just made some custom size 200 millimeter ones for an artist that wanted one. And so we do do crazy things like that, we have another crazy brush you and I have discussed called the quatro quatro is a personal brush. And it's we'll maybe put a slide up of it. It's got four brush heads for brush heads, that was an Scandinavian artist. And he sent Mr. Defet at a sketch of this brush he wanted. So he could put four different colors of paint on each brush had, I think it was red, yellow, orange, and white. And he was painting giant burning suns. So we put like a, you know, we made them to size is actually 60 millimeters and 100 millimeters. And he was doing this big twisting motion with them doing these huge canvases of burning sun. So we made him a custom brush where we just made him three or four. And, and then we just made that we decided, well, we just don't we do that we just put it in the catalog and make it available to everybody. So it's you know, it just shows like we're really going for quality over quantity. And we really want to make things that unique for artists. And this is also kind of the fun part of the job too. It's kind of a fun challenge to see if we can manufacture these things, you know, that artists want I mean in the modelers we used to make them up to 200 mil and then artists that oh, I want a bigger one and I want a bigger one. And you know now we're making them up 300 mil 400 millimeters, 500 millimeters, you know, so 1216 and 20 inches. And we also make the bat badgers and modelers, the badger hair, all natural hair starts thicker at the root and then gets thinner at the tip. So bad, your hair is completely different. It's thinner at the root and gets thicker at the tip. So it has a whole different effect for oil painting. And blending, softening. Even if you take the modeler and you're just doing background paintings, it gives it a little different look than if you're doing it with hog bristle. So yeah, we have a huge range of natural hair brushes, I don't think I've covered them all. We also make one called a smooth oil blender, which is Filbert and series 1833 combines Kolinsky Sable squirrel hair and black Sable. And that's if you just want to smooth out everything. And that again came from an artist's request, he just wanted to be able to smooth out and blend out everything. So so that's the fun part of the job is making these you know making these unique and kind of crazy brushes for for artists and, and I know that I enjoy it, the experience when that happens. And I know that everybody at DaVinci kind of enjoys the challenge. We can't always do it. You know, we get a lot of requests for people every year saying can I send you some of my hair? And can you make a brush for me? No, no, no, no, we're not going to do that. That's that's we've, we've tried it once or twice but that's something we don't do. Just FYI. So So yes, that's that's our line of natural oil painting brushes and you know DaVinci like I said they just launched a new website DaVinci hyphen, depot.com d f et I have the new print catalog. There's also a DaVinci phone app. So you can download it, you know, on your phone and it has all the brushes on it and the measurements, short video. So if you're interested in these hog brushes I've talked about or the ox hair brushes, black Sable, you can go you know put in, you can go to a store and scan it. You can put in black Sable, you know, the filbert is series 1845 You could just put an 1845 the brush comes up on the app and you have you have you know a short video how to use it. You've got the measurements, you've got pictures, it's really they've done an incredible job and this is, it's really great in the stores for the employees who work there, because it's a way for them to kind of get their own quick customer asked a question about a brush, they can check it, they can say, Oh, how wide is this brush, they can do the measurements are there. So they can really get into either the basics or the minutiae about the brush. And that goes for artists, you know, people that work in art material stores. Oftentimes, you know, students who are going into art college these days, not as many art colleges teach the foundation class anymore, which is where you learn about the materials, you learn about how brushes are made, or oil paints made, or watercolor brushes, how it all works together, I have a great old friend in LA named Steve sate sick. And he's taught this class for years and Art Center in Pasadena. And using our brushes, and he's a wonderful guy, and his wife, and states is also an oil painting instructor at Art Center in Pasadena. And, you know, so a lot of times the students go in, and you know, they don't have this kind of foundation education that all art schools used to require. So they kind of have to go out on their own to kind of, you know, learn, learn about the materials, and it's, you know, the materials can be daunting. Certainly what's happened, you know, with the internet the last decade, especially as all these artists making videos about how to use our brushes has been wonderful, because, you know, I think a lot of people would go into an art supply store, and they'd see a quill brush, or they'd see maybe an expensive Kolinsky Sable brush or a black sable brush. And maybe the especially the quill brushes can be very intimidating. But now, I mean, with all of the online videos, you know, the urban Skechers watercolorists flower painters how to use these quilt brushes, and the people see what can be done with them. Well, now they're not it's not as intimidating anymore. And so that's been the wonderful thing about you know, especially like BoldBrush sponsoring all these artists, all these videos about how artists are using paint and brushes. I mean, it's a wonderful wealth of information BoldBrush is created, so that they can see how the materials are used and kind of get a get a, you know, a short education, you know, watch a one minute video or a two minute video, or if they want to go in deep, they can find that too. And if they love the work of a painter, in particular, and you know, they want to emulate the worker that painter they can see the materials they're using. So I think all this is great. And you know, we've had a whole revival in sign painting. last 10 years, we have a huge range of sign painting and lettering brushes. They weren't selling very much. But now with the internet, you know, gilding sign painting, lettering, all of these specialty brushes, we make our you know, there's a great demand for them now. And that's wonderful. Because, you know, we didn't stop making them because there wasn't that much demand for, you know, maybe 20 years ago, we didn't discontinue them because we didn't look at the spreadsheet and say, oh, you know, we haven't sold 300 of these this year. It's just not the way we think. And and, you know, it's a little bit about, you know, it's been, it's a bit like AT and T owning Warner Brothers, you know, you kind of have accountants running film studios, and that can apply to art supply companies as well that have been bought and then you know, you have 20 brands under one corporate umbrella. A lot of brands to manage for anybody. Yeah. So. So that's, you know, another way we're different and I think how we try to stand out from others.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:03:51

Yeah, yeah. And then, um, I think the other really cool thing about Vinci is specifically what you had mentioned earlier that you guys have very unique synthetic brushes that try and really accomplish to imitate the same effects that you can get with you know, with natural brushes for people who maybe don't feel comfortable using natural brushes or actually prefer the texture. So do you mind telling us a little bit about some of the synthetic brushes?

Greg Daniels: 1:04:20

Yeah, and you know, we we've really worked on the synthetic brushes like I said for the last 50 years making great synthetic brushes and different and unique ones. And because you know we do have a large group of people who want vegan brushes so we have a whole you know, complete vegan brush line as well. Well, you know, both in short handle and long handle brushes and then the oil brushes and you know, I'll include acrylic ones in here in particular, the the main oil brush that we designed is the grease to and this brush really has the feeling of almost as a feel like a synthetic black sable which is our natural airbrush I talked about earlier. I'm kind of with a synthetic hog bristle, but more towards the black Sable. And you know, this brush comes in round and bright and Filbert and fans. And we also make a mock along modeler that seems to be very well received for background painting, and under painting and these kinds of things. So again, this is, you know, like five diameters synthetic, it's a crimped fiber, which we developed. So it just holds and releases paint differently. And it's, I think it's a better brush than other brands, synthetic mongoose brushes. And it's completely different. And I really encourage we have sets in this brush, you know, I've from just visiting artists studios for so long since I was a teenager. You know, I always ask artists like, what, what shapes do you use? And the answers are so different, I only use filberts. I use rounds and filberts I only use you know, brights and flats for, you know, you get every kind of combination of the two. So with all of our with Grigio, you know, I just thought well, I'll make a set. So we have sets that are just rounds, just brights, we have just a filbert set, and then you get a set that's got all the shapes, you know, so you get kind of a potpourri of the different, different shapes. Why I use the word potpourri, I have no idea. But anyways, you get the so, you know, this was designed with artists in mind, because you know, there are some artists who don't want to buy a stick, because they don't want this flat, maybe they don't want the round. They just want the filters. So we kind of did that across all the oil painting lines. But the green do the stroke it delivers is really different from any other synthetic brush. And I encourage you to try it. We have a nice literature pamphlet on it as well. And you know, there's plenty of information on the DaVinci website. And I think this is really going to be the most popular synthetic oil painting brush. For us it is now but going out as more and more oil painters try it because we've just gotten a great reaction to it all over the world with this crimped fiber. So we have a new line of synthetic hog bristle brushes. And it's called the Teneo. And these are new. And it's another way of kind of if you don't want to use natural hog bristle brushes, this is a synthetic hog bristle brush line that we've made to emulate the feel of hog bristle. So it's called the Teneo si Hu ne Oh, and it's just getting out there into the stores. It's very affordable. And so far we've had a great reaction to it. And we one of the things especially of course, we make the classic sizes, you know the round the flat, but we also make it in a modular again, so you can paint your backgrounds you can cover large areas of work, and that comes from 20 millimeters up to 120 millimeter. So up to about you know, three quarters of an inch up to about five inches of width. So check that one out. The the modeler especially is series 2429. And so far that's been very popular with oil painters looking for a synthetic hug bristle brush. So that's it. That's the Janelle And you know, we also make the top of grill brush which we talked about as a five diameter synthetic brush. That's our overall best seller because we've been selling it in the United States for a long time. And it also comes in huge sizes for people that want it you know if they're if you're buying bigger canvases, this is a great brush you can use to kind of cover all that Canvas. You know, bigger canvas is much less expensive than it used to be so it's a great brush for that. Then we also make the green handle the Nova the golden synthetic, which was our first synthetic brush and it's the most affordable we make in the artists range we make a student oil painting and acrylic paint brush called the college brush. That's our least expensive one if you'd like to try that one. And we then make a very kind of crazy brush called the impasto. The apostle is nothing but the thickest fibers and it's it has the feeling like a painting knife so you know a lot of people call it the flexible painting knife brush because if you push it against the canvas or a panel has kind of the same resistance feeling as a paint painters knife and that's called the imposter and we also made that brush for people who you know if you grew up working in an art supply store you will always have these painters coming in saying I'm so hard on my brushes I thrash on my brushes I destroy all my work. hashes. And well, here's the past, this is gonna be the most difficult one for you to destroy. And we also make a super stiff modeler version of it. And, you know, we'll put up a picture of a modeler, so everybody knows what I'm talking about. And we also make a, you know, long flat handle, while they're called Spalter. That's just a technical term, in many in hog bristle, so it's a huge range for oil painters, both in natural hair and synthetic, and then a lot of specialty brushes as well. And again, we make a huge range of brush sets. Sometimes when you buy a brush set from a store online, you do save a little bit of money, than if you bought the brushes individually, that's kind of the idea of a set, it's a little bit of a deal. And like I said, we do generally make a sampler set where you get all the different shapes. And then we make I've designed these specialized sets for painters, where you get, you know, if you just use rounds, there's just rounds, just brights are just filberts are just flat, so you can look out for those as well. And the next thing we have in our pricing is we're making some custom sets for BoldBrush. So these will be ready soon, they'll be available soon. And when these come out, I hope you all hear about it. Certainly BoldBrush will, will make the link available, where they're where they're being sold. But yeah, this is exciting. This is a collaboration with BoldBrush that we've been working on hasn't been a fly by night thing. We've been working on it for quite some time. And it's almost ready. So those will be available soon. And we're going to start with brushes for oil painters. And then we'll kind of expanded out to other ranges as well. So we're very, we're super excited about that. That's going to be great. Yes.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:11:51

And once once we do have that link, I will include it in the show notes. And I will also make an extra announcement when it is ready. If you know this episode comes out, and then now the brushes aren't ready in the future apps have just added in as an announcement. Yes, what are some links where people can go check out more stuff?

Greg Daniels: 1:12:13

Well, I mean, you know, like I said, there's the main DaVinci site, which I would recommend that one is the main place because they've just redone the site. And that's DaVinci hyphen, D, F, D, E, F, E t.com. You know, there's also Instagram, we have Instagram DaVinci. Official, we have Instagram DaVinci North America, which is, which is my Instagram site. And if artists want to show work on that they can, they can send us their work. Other places, I mean, as far as buying, buying the DaVinci brushes in North America, US or Canada, I mean, I always recommend your local art supply store. And because that's the lifeblood of the art supply industry of the independent art supply dealers. We don't sell to chain stores, so we don't sell to Michaels or Hobby Lobby or, or these types of big craft chains. It's just not who we are. And, you know, they're generally selling brushes that are 399-590-9799. So less expensive brushes. We have brushes in those price ranges. But that's just not really our primary focus. And without going into online dealers, because we have a lot of online dealers. So I don't want to really put a preference one over the other. That you know, you can find all of our brushes online in many different places. And if you have trouble with that, again, just email me at Greg at Greg daniels.com. And I know where all the brushes are where all the local dealers are. I'm the sole source for North America for DaVinci brushes, so I'm happy to help you and find you the brush you need or send you a catalog.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:14:04

Yes, definitely the catalog. I want the catalog.

Greg Daniels: 1:14:09

Beautiful catalog. And people are artists. You know, I think it's six months old and artists have been just thrilled that we have a print catalog with big bold pictures and you know all this information. I do want to make one last point. personal note. I'm married to an oil painter. So I'm living with lots of oil paint around and lots of brushes. And my wife Olivia's favorite brush is the DaVinci series 5423. So that is the maestro to hog bristle filbert. So you want to give that one a try. She loves it.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:14:49

Well thank you so much for telling us all about the oil painting brushes. We will also be having an episode very shortly on the watercolor brushes because I know we have a lot of what watercolorists who are part of the BoldBrush group? So stay tuned for that, guys. And thank you so much, Greg.

Greg Daniels: 1:15:07

Thank you very much.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:15:09

Thank you. We here at BoldBrush want to extend our sincerest gratitude to Gregory Daniels as well as the team at DaVinci for all of their hard work and making this collaboration possible. I personally also want to thank Michael Olson for providing me with all the footage of the DaVinci factory as well as all the brush demos. If you're listening to this episode, I highly recommend visiting BoldBrush show.com. To watch the video version of the episode, you'll be able to visually see what the Da Vinci factory is like see the wonderful artisans and makers of the brushes, and also the demonstrations of the specific brushes we mentioned. Again, to watch the video version of this episode, just visit BoldBrush show.com. And of course the site where you can purchase the DaVinci and BoldBrush paints that is live. Just visit brush off er.com forward slash collections forward slash BoldBrush And you'll find them there. We also have a special discount code to get an extra 10% off the already special pricing at checkout. Just use the code BoldBrush. Your order supports our community efforts at BoldBrush and FASO