subject: Tips For Artists, How To Clean Your Brushes [print this page] Artists paint brushes are your most used and most abused tool. I myself have been guilty of all types of brush abuse, from leaving a brush jammed in a can of dirty terps to letting a brush get so hard it was a better hammer than a brush.
I have put considerable time into research and experimenting looking for the best materials and techniques for taking care of a brush. Here are some of them:
First, lets look at what a brush is. An artist brush consists of a handle, normally wood and normally finished with a lacqure, Next is the furrell, normally a nickel plated brass tube that holds the hair to the handle. Next is the Hair, this can be natural or synthetic. The hair is held into the furrell with adhesive and then crimped.
A good quality brush uses select hair that is designed to hold and release paint at your will, the rest of the brush is designed to support this hair so it can do its job properly. Just about any abuse will quickly compromise the qualities you are paying for. So, if you are not going to take care of your brush, you might as well buy the cheapest you can find.
I will go into the details of brush constructing in greater detail in a future artical.
During use. never leave a brush standing in water or solvent. This does many bad things, the handle is damaged, the glue in the ferrule is damaged, the hairs are squashed down and the water or solvent carries paint and resin further up into the heel of the brush.
I sell a very good "Giant Brush Washer" on ToolsForPainters, This consists of a heavy duty container with a scrub plate suspended off its bottom, with a snap on lid. This allows the sludge to drop away from the cleaning area plus it gives a large volume to prevent splashing. Also, there is a filter option for filtering your solvent.
Before starting to paint, "fill your heel", this is filling up the brush with something to prevent paint and oils from being drawn up into the heel [the area where the hairs enter the ferrule]. Even a tiny amount of dried paint will destroy the response of your brush and make it bush out. Packing can be done with a little bit of mineral oil. [I am working on a material that will work with both oils and acrylics.]
Remember that as you rinse your brush in solvent or water, you are making an increasingly strong mixture of oils and resins that go back into your brush. Thus it is important to wash the brush in soap and water when you are done for the day. Use my Brush Cleaner [for oil or acrylic] , wet the brush, squirt a small amount in the hairs and work it in well, remember you want to clean out the inner layers of hairs, then rinse, shape and let dry.
If you have a hardened brush, you can wet it, work in my cleaner, then bag the brush in a plastic bag and let it sit overnight, rinse and repeat. This works to some extent, if the brush is really bad you probably can't get it back all the way. After cleaning you can condition the hair with my Neatsfoot Oil, use the squeeze bottle to inject the oil into the hairs, let sit least overnight, before using rinse out most of the oil in solvent. Neatsfoot oil is a non-drying oil, so don't mix it with your paint! This is what old time trick sign painters use to use to keep their brushes soft and responsive.
The best trick is to keep the brush from getting hard to start with! Remember that brushes do wear out even when treated right so once they get hard, and worn down and non-responsive, it is time to turn them into mixing sticks.
