Tutorial : Maintaining your brushes.

[Jericho199]

I don't have a working camera, but I think I can get through this one without pics.


Things you will need

-Used paint brushes
-Solvent (<---link)
-Pink Soap (<---link also)(brush conditioner)
-plastic paint palette (actually many things would work here. A shot glass, small saucer, etc.)


Okay, this is a pretty simple procedure and only takes a few minutes. I did it myself on 3 brushes today and it took about 7 minutes.


Extracting Paint from the Brush

Begin with putting a small amount of solvent into each well of your mixing tray. I use the cheap plastic trays you can find at just about any art supply store for dirt cheap. Here's an example.




Now, simply take a brush and rub it vigorously in one of the wells. As the solvent extracts paint, the solvent will change color. If the solvent becomes saturated, move onto the next well. If you run out of wells, just dump the solvent and fill them again.

Don't be afraid to smash the brush in there good. A lot of paint collects down where the bristles connect to the brush. The next step will deal with any frayed bristles.

After you've got all the paint out of the brush that you can, rinse the brush thuroughly in water to get all solvent out of the bristles.


Conditioning and Shaping

This step will save you a lot of grief. If you're anything like me, you HATE when your bristles get bent and frayed.

Take your brush and apply some (Pink Soap) to the bristles. Take your thumb and forefinger and work the soap in. After working it in a bit, use your fingers to reshape the brush, straightening out any bristles that have become bent or frayed. Once your have the desired shape, place the brush in a cup or rack (with the bristles pointed up) and let it sit overnight. The soap will dry and stiffen, holding the bristles and extracting any left over paint.

The next day, take your brushes and rinse them out thuroughly under a faucet. Make sure to get all the pink soap out of the bristles, or it'll ruin any paint pot your stick the brush in (the soap is a mild solvent itself).

Now, your brush should be nice and soft and striaght and ready to paint again!


I hope some of you will find this useful!

[Chaos Lord Horus]

Thanks jerico! good stuff, unusual but helpful!

+ reppie!

[hairyyahoo]

good stuff there jericho, might need to give that a go myself and my brushed have an alarmingly short life span what do you recomend as a solvent? does it need to be a specialised one or are there a few different ones that could do the job and are easy to get hold of?

+rep

[Jericho199]

Under the "list of things", the solvent is a clicky for the one I use. You should be able to find it and the pink soap at just about any art supply store.

[Chaos Lord Horus]

cool, and jerico, what exactly is that thing under your name, some sort of monkey? a dog?

[Jericho199]

It's GIR ) from a cartoon called "Invader Zim". He's in his doggie disguise.

[Chaos Lord Horus]

and you put it there why? lol

[Jericho199]

Why not? He's hilarious.

[Chaos Lord Horus]

fair enough

[hairyyahoo]

Originally Posted by Jericho199

Under the "list of things", the solvent is a clicky for the one I use. You should be able to find it and the pink soap at just about any art supply store.

[shiftyeyes] of course, i knew that. i was...er...just testing ya...yeah that'll hold[/shiftyeyes]

[Brother Warchild]

Great stuff Jericho, I am in the same boat as Hairy, my brushes life spans short and this should help alot. Thanks

[Rellik]

great stuff + rep

[Ion Raptor]

Will the pink soap help brushes that have already frayed out a little?

+rep

[Jericho199]

Originally Posted by Ion Raptor

Will the pink soap help brushes that have already frayed out a little?

+rep

Yup! Although it'll likely take a few treatments to get them into really good condition if they're pretty bad. But if they're just a little frayed they should be back to new with just one treatment.

[Ion Raptor]

Nice, thanks man. You just saved my life