Re: How do you clean your brush after using Oil Paints

In Reply to: Re: How do you clean your brush after using Oil Paints posted by Tim Kangas on 09/16/00 at 10:20 PM:

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: I have found that the best way to keep brushes supple and prolong their use life is to not clean them at all, but to keep your bristle brushes in a large coffee can filled with non-drying cooking oil. Before you use them you simply squeeze out the cooking oil onto a paper towel.

: That whole idea sound ludicrous. You mean a brush that has been used for 5 hours filled with every color of oil paint doesn't need to be cleaned? It just needs to sit in some cooking oil? I would venture to say that upon use of that said brush upon embarking on a new painting, your color will be contaminated due to the fact that the brush wasn't cleaned. I've used odorless paint thinner and turpenoid to clean my brushes after working with conventional oils followed by simple bar soap and water, and never had a brush go to hell because of it.

: Tim

If you have had success with your method of brush cleaning then by all means continue it. However, my experience has led me to believe that soap and water and solvents dry out the brush and curtail its use life. In terms of the contaminiation, I have found that it is useful to squeeze most of the color out of the brush before immersing it in the cooking oil, and if some color still adheres to the bristles it is simply enough to squeeze it out before painting and redip the brush in the oil and squeeze again if necessary. The little cooking oil and residue of color left are so minor as to be of no consequence.
 
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