'Colour Duster' Brushes- A Bargain!

So, heres the thing. I have some Colour duster brushes, the Inkylicious ones, and they work well. They have quite stiff bristles, rather like a mens shaving brush. Which I also have a few of, and use for the same purpose.






 Last weekend, after a bit of a browse at YouTube videos, I took the plunge and bought a set of Clarity brushes. These come in a set of four, differing sizes, and have much softer bristles, very smooth and silky feeling. The only problem with all these brushes- they are not cheap, are they?

I also bought a new stencil, but we'll get to that in a while.

Today, I took myself out for a walk, for some exercise. I only live a 5 minute (10 for me at the moment) walk from our shopping centre, and it has plenty of places to have a sit down and get my breath back.
In our centre is an outlet of The Works, and I freely admit I always drop in on my way past, they have some amazing bargains usually. Today proved to be no exception.

They have a special offer of 2 for £3 on 3 different ranges of paintbrushes. What caught my eye were the range with the Fuschia coloured ends- they have a 1", 3/4" and 1/2", as well as many smaller ones.They felt lovely and soft, and I thought stood a good chance of working well as colour dusters, and being smaller than usual, could provide a great opportunity for some detailed work with stencils. They only had two of the largest left, so I got the two smaller sizes as well.
 So, I hear you ask, did they work? Well, here's what happened when I got home:
 
You remember the Clarity stencil I mentioned? This one is called Double Bubble, and comes with the cut out bits as well, for masks, which I though a great idea.

I got out 5 Adirondack inkpads, Sunshine Yellow, Butterscotch, Sunset Orange, Citrus and Lettuce. The stencil was attached on a couple of sides with some low tack tape, and I'm ready to try out the 1" brush.

 It seems to be working well,I started with Sunshine Yellow, and it's going on really easily.
 Time for the second colour, Butterscotch.
That blends into the Yellow with no problem, no harsh lines.
 Then swap to Sunset Orange, and it's blending in so easily I'm actually really amazed.

 
From Sunset Orange through Citrus and ending with Lettuce, I am really, really impressed.


By the way, off on a side note here- do you find you have problems getting your inkpad to stay in place when you are using colour brushes or a brayer?

Here's my solution:
I bought a roll or two of rubber matting from Poundland- I have one sheet under my craft mat on my desk. This little offcut keeps my inkpads in place for hands free use!





Anyway, back to the ink blending.

The big reveal-look how smooth that blend is. I am really, really very impressed, for brushes that work out at £1.50 apiece, I couldn't be more pleased.They are really nice in your hands too, as they have that lovely softgrip area in the middle.
So much so, I shall be having another walk over later this week, to see if they've had any more delivered! They have some great multi buy deals on many art and craft products too, I noticed.