Every now and then, one of my local art supply stores runs promotions where you get a free brush or pad of paper or whatever when you spend a certain amount on watercolours, and last year some time the offer was for a free Alvaro Castagnet Squirrel Mop brush.
At the time I’d been looking to get a new mop brush and I wanted some new Daniel Smith watercolours, so I took advantage of the deal and ended up with a nice new brush.
The Alvaro Castagnet brushes are made by NEEF and are good quality. The wooden handles are painted in a nice red with metallic blue text embossed on them, while the ferrule is bound with silver wire. The bristles are soft genuine squirrel hair and they hold a lot of water. This allows you to cover a lot of paper with one stroke, but the brush also comes to a very fine point, more so than many of the other squirrel mops I have.
Price-wise, they’re a bit dearer than other squirrel mops in the same size, though if you find them on sale or can get them in promotions the way I got mine, you can get them for a good price.
Whether or not the Alvaro Castagnet NEEF brush is good value or not will depend on how good you are at hunting down bargains and special offers, but they are a solid line of watercolour brushes. The fine point on an otherwise chunky brush allows for plenty of flexibility with line width within a single stroke, so it’s worth adding one of these to your brush collection if you can.
artdragon86 
Wish my art supplies shops had offers as good as this! I’ve often been intrigued by these brushes. I’ve missed out a few ‘auctions’ to buy these at a lower than new price. I’ve already got way too many brushes as it is – mainly mop ones too – so I haven’t been able to justify the investment yet but I’ll keep on looking!
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