It should be possible to buy this equipment in the Chinatown's districts of large cities, in large art supply shops or in museum or art gallery bookshops. A Chinese-made brush is essential for good Chinese painting. It is made in a particular way so that it produces the correct strokes. These cannot be achieved with any other kind of brush. A good quality stiff brush is made from wolf's or leopard's hair, which is brown, fine and hard.
All bristle sizes are useful for outline work and for thin, fine lines and dots.
A soft brush . A good quality soft brush is made from sheep's or goat's hair. Soft brushes are used for heavy branches, large leaves, flower petals, and for applying ink or color to cover large areas. Wood from the Tung oil or pine tree is frost burned is a kiln and then the soot is scraped off the walls, mixed with glue and then molded into the required shape. The best-quality ink sticks are made with the soot that is collected from the very top of the kiln.