Re: to cleaning brushes after using Oil paints

In Reply to: Re: to cleaning brushes after using Oil paints posted by James Morton on 08/31/00 at 8:23 PM:

: : I friend of a a friend who knows an art teacher said that Rembrandt was fond of using the oil in tins of sardines for maintaining his brushes.

: : Again, rather than pass around old (and young) wive's tales and anecdotes, read Jacques Turner's book titled BRUSHES. He is in the business of making brushes and describes them and their care in detail. Nowhere does he mention cooking oil. The cooking oil suggestions always come on the heels of other homely recipes using kitchen implements and ingredients in lieu of materials manufactured by people with a vested interest in producing products that attract and retain customers. If vegeatable oils worked that well, some sharp marketer would bottle it up under another name. But they don't.

: : What your evidence is is like the signs people in Russia put up saying "May this House Be Safe From Tigers." When it is pointed out that there have never been tigers in their vicinity, they say..."see, it works." It's those "therfors" that are the biggest traps. Just because your brushes have not burst into flame does not prove that the use of vegetable oils are warranted. After all, you do have to wash them out with spirits before use, don't you? Don't those spirits undo the benfit by removing the oil? How do you get out the oil that MUST seep into the ferrules (you don't deny the existence of capilarry action, do you) and how do you keep it from contaminating the paint? Would you put a drop of non-drying vegetable oil into a blob of paint? After all, the paint would dry...but what would happen down the line?

: : Why is it that the people most concerned with permanence will overlook simple things like contaminating their own oils?

: Again, I would only say that I have my own experience as consel, in twenty years of using vegetable oil to clean and preserve my brushes I have never seen a case of hairs falling out and this is despite the fact that I use supercheap Chinese bristle brushes for roughing out my paintings. As far as contamination is concerned, all I can say is that I clean off the excess oil and paint from my brushes before use with a paper towel and can say that so little of the vegetable oil adheres to the bristles and inside the ferrule that its contaminating effects are negligible. For what it is worth, there are several accounts of early painters preserving their brushes in oil both drying and non-drying. Those who are skeptical should just try this with their brushes and see for themselves rather than taking my word for it.

I second Rob's recommendation of Jacque Turner's book. It's concise and very informative. I've heard other painters use olive oil to keep their brushes healthy but have never tried it myself.
As for the details of this debate, I will refrain from adding more; there is enough in my life to drive me crazy without visualizing the glue in my brushes slowly perishing like my poor mortal body.
Re: to cleaning brushes after using Oil paints rob howard   Posted at: 09/01/00 (0)
Re: to cleaning brushes after using Oil paints pain_ting_fool   Posted at: 09/02/00 (1)
Re: to cleaning brushes after using Oil paints James Morton   Posted at: 09/03/00 (0)
 
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