Varnishing is a personal artistic decision, taking into account the variables in application and the desired finished product. There are a lot of materials out there for varnishes and applications, but these are two of the best paint manufacturers for varnish products and technical help in application. Golden Artist Colors makes MSA and Polymer varnishes, and Gamblin Artist Colors makes Gamvar and Cold Wax varnishes. Between the two, you can finish almost any type of artwork.
Golden Artist Colors has a large resource on their YouTube channel for varnishing. They include not only how to use their products, but how to decide if you need to varnish and how to remove varnish.
Gamblin Artist Colors has products for varnishing oil paintings or using cold wax as a varnish for a matte finish, suitable for finishing a range of mediums. Scott Gellatly demonstrates both of these products in the following video from their YouTube channel:
The best brushes for most varnishes are large flats; I prefer the 2" Faux Squirrel for most of my varnish work. Other options include the 2" brushes in the Palmer line.
Keep Painting, Karyn For more brush information, check out the Dynasty Brush website.
Interboro is by far my favorite bristle brush, mainly because it holds up beautifully with the heavy bodied acrylic paint I use -- but also because it comes in SO many sizes and shapes that I can always find what I need. Since it created with fine pure white Chungking bristle, which is double boiled to ensure it's shape after continued with heavy paint, this brush holds up under the hardest wear. The tuft is designed with our proprietary Interlocked technology to utilize the natural curve of the bristle, maintaining the length of the natural hairs. This brush is excellent for oils, heavy body acrylics, and encaustics. It also comes in larger sizes -- good for mural work.
Interboro is our long handled oil painting brush which comes in our speciality patented angle wave shape, ideal for landscape foliage or animal hair, in sizes 6, 8 and 10. It also comes in fans, brights, filberts, flats, rounds in a range of 1 - 20 in size. Keep Painting, Karyn For more brush information, check out the Dynasty Brush website.
