A Great Brush Find!

There's nothing like a painting with a new brush.  My absolute favorite type of brush is a flat, but no matter how hard I try to take good care of them they wear out pretty quickly...or maybe it's just that I usually find a favorite and then use it every day.   But once a flat brush does that weird fanning out thing, it's pretty much a lost cause.  

I usually don't write product reviews but this brush was so awesome I just had to share: 

   

Royal Langnickel Bordeaux Flat

I paid $2.47 for the size I got, actually less than that since I had a coupon.  I wasn't expecting much, I mean seriously, it's too cheap to be good, but it was also worth a shot.  I'm SO glad I did, I love this brush! I even prefer it over my much more expensive brushes.  I've been using it for about 2 weeks, and so far it's still amazing.  Even the handle feels amazing, and I love the purple color.  Next time I'm buying one in every size!

Identical Panel, Different Brand?

My favorite paintings surface, hands down, is Ampersand Gessobord. They're a little on the pricey side...but so worth it, since they're magic. A few months ago however I bought a lot of these Blick panels, they're not terrible, but they have this weird canvas texture on them that bothers me sometimes...they're just not quite as magical.

Blick Studio Artists' Boards

Then I stumbled upon these at Art Essentials downtown:

Ampersand Value Series

I was instantly intrigued, a value series from Ampersand? What makes them different from regular Ampersand? I quickly inspected them only to find that they're the exact same panels as the Blick ones. With the same weird canvas texture, and the strange hang hole in the back of the flat ones, and available in all the same sizes. Have any of you had similar discoveries?