I can hear my mother now telling me to invest in a good pair
of shoes, or one nice dress, or a fine piece of furniture. Not me, I always put my money into the tools
of my craft, my art. A good natural
bristle brush is an investment as they are expensive, but worth the money.
A good brush makes your work easier, more comfortable, and
produces the best results. It is similar
to your well-worn shoes, your thread bare but comfy bathrobe, or your favorite
pair of jeans…you just can’t replace em.
I don’t know about you, but when my favorite pair of jeans start to fray
and wear, it is then that I start to nurse them along, wash them by hand, hang
them to dry, treat them better. If only
I had been kinder to them in the beginning they might have lasted a little
longer. I know it is going to be difficult, at best, to replace them. This
applies to your art tools as well, especially your brushes. We all have our favorite
brush, whether it is one for painting trim, furniture, or fine art. A good brush is like a best friend, you need
to treat it with care from the beginning so it will last a lifetime.
Recently a customer asked me how I care for my Annie
Sloan Brushes. She had watched a video
about brush care on the internet (not an Annie Sloan produced video). The woman
in the video instructed her audience to soak their brushes overnight in hot
soapy water and then rinse them in the morning.
I gasped; not only is that wrong, it will ruin your brushes! If you follow this practice, one morning you
will wake up to find a tub of bristles separated from the handles. Never SOAK
your brushes in hot water, especially in hot soapy water, as this will soften
the glue holding your bristles within the ferrule.
Another misnomer is to put your brush in a plastic bag and
freeze it between uses. NO! You can
certainly bag your brush while you take a break, eat lunch, etc. but never
freeze your brush as you are freezing paint into your brush. If you need to
leave your project for a while simply bag the whole brush, or wrap the head of
the brush in cellophane and rubber band it around the handle. You can even bag
a brush over night, but not continuously, everything eventually needs a bath to
be at its best.
The following steps should be used for the care of your
natural bristle brushes when used with water based paint. If you follow these practices
your brushes should be in your hand for a lifetime.
Caring for Natural Bristle Brushes used with Water Based
Paints
1. Always wash a new brush before you use it. I use Dawn Liquid Detergent in the shop, but
you can use most any detergent that doesn’t contain bleach. Bleach will dry out your bristles. I squeeze the
detergent into my hand and then carefully mash my brush bristles into the soap.
Rinse with cool water. This will help remove any loose bristles before you
begin to paint. This step will prevent
those pesky hairs from ending up on your canvas, chair, or trim. Once you have washed your brush smack it on
the palm of your hand or on a table top to loosen any stray hairs.
2. When you finish painting for the day try to remove the
majority of the paint from the brush onto your work before you start to clean
the brush. The less paint in the brush, the easier it will be to clean. Rinse the brush holding it by the handle with
the brush end pointing down into the water stream. Do not hold the brush head under the water
with the bristles pointing up as this will push the paint down into the
brush. Pour some detergent into your
hand and gently mash the bristles into the soap, working them up into the
brush. Repeat this step till the water runs clear when you rinse out the soap.
3. Always condition your natural bristle brushes after
washing. Once my brush has been washed I squirt a small amount of inexpensive
hair conditioner into my palm and work it into the brush just like I do when I
condition my own hair. Rinse with cool
water and shape the brush.
4. Hang your brushes to dry. Do not dry your brushes upside
down. If there is any residual paint in the brush it
will settle down into the bristles close to the ferrule and will eventually
cause the bristles to break. I prefer to
hang my brushes over the sink to dry.
You can use some wire to create “hooks” and hang the brushes off the
faucet, thus allowing any water to drip into the sink. Once dry, the brushes are returned to the
brush board. For my fine art natural
bristle brushes, I wash them as I have described and lay them on a shop towel
to dry. Once dry they are returned to their proper containers for storage.
Lastly, if you paint a lot you might consider investing in a
brush “comb”. You can find them in any
hardware store. This tool helps “comb” the
paint out of the interior of the brush.
It should also have a half circle cut side that is used to clean paint
rollers. Just run that edge down your
paint roller and you will be surprised how quickly the paint comes out. This tool cuts my cleaning time by half.
Hope these tips help you with the care of your brushes.
Happy Painting!
Susan Hudson
