My Confession

I have a confession: I'm a bad brush owner. I own 30 or so brushes and about 20 of them are in disrepair. Paint dried to the ferule, paint dried in the bristles, glue dried on them, matted medium used with a good watercolor brush*. I go through phases where I'm working watercolor or gouache exclusively and washing the brush thoroughly after use is not as necessary as it is for acrylic. So I got into the bad habit of allowing my brushes to dry after only rinsing them.

My painting professor would kill me. He allotted time at the end of each class for all of us to clean our brushes. He spent about half a class period teaching us proper brush care. This was a man who took brush cleaning seriously. His motto was that a expensive brush should last you a life time, if you cared for it properly. If he saw the state of my grumbacher brushes, he'd surely give me an F.

Yesterday, while working on a art journal spread I got frustrated, downright pissed off at myself, as I looked through my brushes, saw that I had several hundreds of dollars worth of ruined brushes. None of which I can afford to replace right now. The only brushes I religiously clean as of late are my liner brushes. I can't paint an entire painting in liner brushes... (Or can I?) So I set about to clean them.

I know what your thinking, its acrylic, those brushes are done. Well as a practiced bad brush owner I can tell you that's not true. Many things will soften acrylic paint. My favorite mix is 25% dish soap, 25% green works cleaner (or some other cleaner without ammonia or clorine) and 50% water mixed thoroughly in a salsa jar. I put about an inch of solution i there. Hte percentages don't need to be accurate, just eyeball it.

You then need to secure your brushes so that they brush part is not resting on the bottom of the container and that the ferrule isn't submerged either. It's a delicate balance. I used blu-tac to hold each brush to the jar at just the right height. You can use whatever works best for you.

For brushes that aren't severely caked with paint/ crud you can try rinsing them out in a few hours. Once the dried on paint is soft you can then wash as normal.

Most of my brushes were ready to go in about 2 hours. I had a handful that I had to let sit over night and I've got 3 I'm letting sit for a week.

I've learned my lesson, from now on at teh end of every painting session, no matter how late I'm washing my damn brushes.

*believe me when I saw that it puts he most perfect amount of matte medium down for an image transfer ever!

Comments

[Andi Fasimpaur]

Thank you. I'm relieved to know that there are solutions to ill-maintained brushes... I confess that I've been basically finger-painting in my journal because I didn't want to deal with cleaning my brushes when I was done.

[tam]

oh my god, i'm the same !! I've ruined so many good brushes, and it's so terrible because they are so so expensive!! thanks for the tips

[Beverley]

Someone suggested to me either dish washing soap or hair shampoo to wash your brushes in. Also not once they are clean to stand them on end in a container, to lay them down flat with a piece of kitchen absorbant paper under the bristles. The reason being the moisture that is left in the bristles will make its way down into the ferule and undermine the glue, so your bristles fall out while you are painting. I am so sad and so anally retentive about brushes, I have crappy cheap brushes I use to apply glues, etc and my decent brushes I use for painting. I clean them all at the end of a painting session. My daughter on the other hand does not clean hers at all because she knows her AR mother will go into meltdown at seeing brushes left with paint on them and clean them for her! Beverley

[leslie herger]

@andi- LOL I was so mad when I grabbed the brush I wanted only to have it be just about like finger painting. boo to ruining brushes

@tam- let me know if it works for you. I've got a few that I'm worried are ruined for good.

@beverly- I used to use shampoo on mine. But now I have a cake of handmade soap that seems to work very well. I also lay my brushes flat after a good washing. Nothing worse than grabbing your favorite brush and having it wobble all over teh place because the wood has swollen, crushed itself, then dried smaller than it was. that makes me sad. If however someone were to do that, as I have in the past, you can take a pair of pliers and give the brush an ugly but serviceable crimp around the top of the ferrule

[Rhomany]

I'm a good brush owner. I only once left one of my good brushes in water overnight. It ruined the end and since it was my favourite brush for shading I had to go spend £15 on a new one. Lesson learned. Now the last thing I do before I finish for the night is wash them out, replace the water in the jar and lay out my brushes on kitchen towel to dry.
The advantage is that I can come down the next day and get stuck right in with the next project without having to go sort out brushes and water.

[apple]

Thanks for the tip! I don't ever really clean my brushes. I buy very cheap ones so when they are ruined I just buy new ones. I guess that's not a really good habit. I do have separate brushes for glue and paint though so I guess it's a start. LOL

[newfry]

i'm a bad brush owner too. so i only buy cheap brushes. i suppose i'd be happier if the bristles didn't keep falling out.

i let mine soak in a little bit of murphy's oil soap and water. then i wash them in that little tub of artist brush cleaner that they sell at art stores. i've even gotten PVA out of brushes with the murphy's oil soap!

[Eveline]

I am a bad brush owner too, and like Newfry, I only use cheap brushes. I use the nylon once, because they can take some abuse and do not fall out. I try to clean mine after use, in handsoap or shampoo, and then let them dry either standing up or flat. I don't think I'll ever pay out a huge amount for brushes, I'll leave that to people who are better owners. ;)

[Andi Fasimpaur]

I have handcrafted glaze brushes that I love more than just about anything. The thing that eventually taught me to appreciate brush care was learning to make them myself... I love the way a handmade brush feels against the surfaces I work on.

[Beverley]

@lesley "you can take a pair of pliers and give the brush an ugly but serviceable crimp around the top of the ferrule" - and you can of course pretend that its someone's neck you don't like much while you are crimping LOL

[leslie herger]

Back in the day, when I played sports, Id envision the softball as the head of a girl who used to tease me incessantly. When I knocked a triple it would feel especially good!