Life is too short to be washing oil painting brushes.
Life is too short to be washing oil painting brushes.
Greetings fellow Steemians!,
As I am sitting here late at night after a long day of painting, I was wondering what I could write about next here on Steemit.
So I’m sitting here looking around my makeshift studio space in contemplation and it just hit me as my eyes caught some of my art supplies on the table that are currently in use.
Looking waaaaayy back during my Atelier training, I remember how religiously dedicated I was to washing my oil painting brushes after use regardless of how long I worked earlier (usually on average of 12 to 14 hrs. everyday) or when I would get back to painting.
At the time it made sense though. After all oil painting brushes can be VERY expensive and if they were to be made unusable I couldn’t afford to replace them as I was living on less than a shoestring.
Over the years it just finally hit me. It just became ridiculous and a huge waste of time.
Now as you can see above in this quick uploaded video...this is pretty much what I do after a day of painting; just keeping my brushes soaking in a tub of walnut oil. You can use linseed oil, or any oil really that oxidizes. If you use any kind of vegetable oils for example, you’re gonna run into some problems as they stay perpetually wet forever. And you definitely don’t want to get any of that into your paint!
So when I’m finished painting for the day, all I do is first rinse them in my brush washer filled with Gamsol to get rid of the excess paint, then let them rest in the oil. All you need is enough so that all the hairs are completely submerged. When you’re ready to paint the next day, just squeeze out the excess oil with a rag or paper towel.
As a week goes by, I might then wash them for real with soap and water and leave the clean soap in to condition and shape the brush.
Other than that, I would say they hold up well! I am so glad I started doing this. I just saves so much time!
Heey this is pretty useful, what a great tip! Nice post!
this post will be proposed to be curated by the @celfmagazine project
@ailindigo Thank you so much! I like to give painting tips whenever I can :)
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