Brush Cleaning and Storage

Hi, I'm Nina Weiss, and we're going to talk about brush cleaning and storage, because you've invested in some good quality brushes and you wanna keep them around and in as best shape as you possibly can for as long as you possibly can. So let's talk about a daily practice that will really help you keep your brushes in good shape. Okay. So we're painting and we're switching brushes. We're cleaning brushes. How should we handle them, and what should we do? Okay. First of all, let me show you what a brand new round looks like. So here are two brand new rounds. Super pointy. There's no fraying, there's no squishing, and they've kept their point. They're in really good shape. Here is a brand new flat. It, too, looks pretty spiffy, and I can use the edge, and there's nothing better than a brand new brush. We love them, but they don't always stay that way, right? Let me show you when good brushes go bad. All right? So here is a similar flat. So it's all splayed out. It's gotten much wider. It's totally lost its edge. It's absolutely still usable, but it's a very different brush than when we started. This, look at this. This is a round gone bad. So the tip is virtually gone. I couldn't make a nice, fine line with this if I tried. But again, it is still absolutely usable. It splays out nicely. It's just very different from the way it started. But we do want to keep it in its pristine shape as long as we can. So what are we gonna do? Well, the cardinal sin is to leave your brushes face down overnight, putting pressure on them, and sort of accelerating that splayed out thing that happens. Okay? So I almost never leave my brushes face down, even when I'm just working. I would put it in the water, swish, swish, swish, and then I take it out and I lay it down. I've got a piece of paper toweling there to absorb the water. Also sometimes what I do is, as I'm painting, I do a lot of wiping, and in wiping, you can help create the form again. So I might wipe, paint off, swish, swish, swish, out of the water, and dry it and put it down. I also end up with a lot of brushes just in my hand, which isn't a bad place for them. You just don't want them stored for any length of time face down like this, okay? So on my work table, I have a variety of brushes stored like this. If you're traveling with your brushes, you can get some really nice brush holders that protect the tips. You can wrap them in a roll-up that protects the tips. I've also seen some wonderful sort of bamboo brush holders. Again, protecting the tips, and it is so worth it to keep them in good shape. It goes without saying that you are never, never, never going to allow your acrylic paint to dry on your acrylic brushes, because they're kind of dead in the water when you do that. So don't ruin a good brush by neglecting your cleaning routine, okay? So what would be my cleaning routine? So I've, during my painting, I've swished, I've wiped. Now it's the end of the day. I am going to wash my brushes. You can purchase brush cleaners. They sort of come in those flat sort of shoe polish tins, but you don't have to use that. So in my studio, by my slop sink, I have a Tupperware container where I started with a nice bar of Napp, the laundry soap, and then I throw in all my soap, and Murphy's Oil soap is a little industry trick. It's got oil in it, and you could throw that in there, too, and it sort of keeps and conditions your bristles, and I reactivate it with water. So I'm working the soap through the bristles, and then I'm going to reshape them and let them dry face up, much like that. Okay? So another trick we have for when good brushes go bad is something called the Brush Shaper. So it's a little potion that you can work through the bristles, form that edge, reform that round, let it dry overnight, and then you sort of crack them and brush off the excess. It gets a bit chalky, and that can help maintain the shape of your brushes. They just won't last forever, and so eventually, you're going to have to repurchase your favorite brush so you can experience that thrill of a sharp edge. Again, I have a lot of brushes in various stages of disintegration, or I should say deterioration. They never fully disintegrate. They're always usable unless you allow too much paint to accumulate and creep up to the ferule, and so they grow stiffer and stiffer until they have no pliability. So it is worth using that soap and water routine to get the rest of the acrylic out, because you probably already know that when acrylic dries, it is hard, and it's hard to get out of your brush. So good practices. Never bristle down. You remember when you were in elementary school and the teacher was always in despair, because she ended up with just jars full of dead brushes. So let's keep them alive. Let's keep them pliable. Let's keep them brush side up and reshaped and washed, and they will make you happy for a good long time.