A good lay-in scenic brush is a wonderful tool to have.  It makes so much of painting life smoother, faster and easier.  Often the difference between an amateur and professional artist is the quality of their tools.  This is one of the tools that can make that difference.

This brush is the ideal tools for laying in large amounts of color smoothly and quickly.  It is thick, so it holds a lot of paint.  That means you don’t have to dip as often, which makes you a faster painter.  The bristles are also higher quality than most brushes you get at the hardware store, and that extra quality makes them better at achieving even textures and coats.  They simply make it easier to achieve quality results with less effort on your part, but you still need to have a feel for how to manipulate a brush. 

Most of them have handles that unscrew and can be replaced with a roller pole or screw on broom handle.  This feature makes them wonderful for working on large pieces without killing your back.  A normal brush can be taped to a pole for similar results, but the ability to screw into the handle centers the pole in the brush, making it fell more balanced to work with, and allows you to be more coordinated while using it. 

My favorite lay-in scenic brush is 6” wide, a little over an inch thick and has bristles that are 3.5” long.  Most lay-in brushes are around those dimensions, but can come in widths from 4” to 7” and the thickness varies with that between 1 and 1.5 inches.  It is too wide to dip in a normal sized paint can, so if you do buy this size as your primary lay-in brush, that is something to be aware of.  The 4” brush does dip into a normal paint can, but because it’s narrower you have to paint longer to cover the same area. 

The biggest difference between a scenic lay-in brush and a more commercial one is that the bristles tend to be a bit longer in the scenic version, giving you more control when using the brush for textures such as scumbling.  In commercial painting they almost always are aiming for flat coats of one color, so they do not need this flexibility. 

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