Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello, everyone.
I'm Andrew Dicer, an impressionist oil
painter and teacher. And in this short class, I'll address a question
students frequently have. They often ask, What is
the best way to clean your oil painting brushes and maintain their shape
so they last longer. In this class, I'll show you a quick routine you can
follow that will keep paint from accumulating
in your brushes and causing them to become stiff and allow you to use your brushes for a much
longer period of time. For your class project,
I'll ask you to upload a photo of your brushes
before you begin this cleaning process
and a photo of your brushes after you complete
this cleaning process. So let's get started by taking
a look at the materials you'll need for cleaning and
maintaining your brushes.
2. Materials: You will need a one
liter container of gambling gamsolPure
odorless mineral spirits. You can buy that at
most art stores. You'll need a container
of Murphy wood cleaner. I believe this used to be
known as Murphy's Oil soap. You'll need a glass jar in which to place the
mineral spirits. I recommend the
glass jar such as this one that has a wire
mesh at the bottom with a crown and you just
take your brush and rake it across the
crown of the wire mesh, and it helps remove the
paint from the bristles. I got this at Hobby Lobby. You'll also need
another jar in which to place the Murphy
wood cleaner. You'll need a small container of BNJ brush cleaner and preserver. You can buy this at
most art stores. You'll need a tennis ball
that has been cut in half, and I'll explain why it needs
to be cut in half later. You'll need a roll
of paper towels. I recommend Viva paper toiles because they're so absorbent. And, of course, you'll
need some dirty brushes, such as this one, and
you'll need a sink. Ideally, util tub,
but any sink will do.
3. How to Cut Tennis Ball in Half: So if you're wondering how I
cut the tennis ball in half, I'm going to quickly show you, I usually wear a pair
of gloves when I do this because I will be
working with a utility knife. So I'm going to open the blade. And this is an old tennis ball. We've got a couple of dogs, so we've got lots of old tennis balls lying
around the house. The first thing I
want to do is I just want to puncture it
at the midway mark. You'll need to be
careful because it'll take quite a bit of
pressure to puncture the ball, and you don't want
the razorblade to slip off and cut your finger. So I'm just going
to do it slowly, and I'm going to apply
pressure you may have to do this several times before you're able to
puncture the ball. There I go. I've punctured the ball and make a
little cut in the ball. And so from here, I'm going to use a
pair of scissors. This is a fairly heavy
duty pair of scissors. And I want to go ahead and stick the scissors
in as far as I can. And I'll just cut
around the tennis ball. You can see the further you get the ball back between
the scissors, the blades, the
easier it is to cut. Okay. So I've got
this tennis ball, and again, it fits nicely
in the palm of my hand. Makes a perfect place to stick your brush and swirl it around when you
have the soap on it, you won't get any
pain on your hands.
4. STEP 1: Cleaning Brushes with Mineral Spirits: So the first thing
you want to do is place some mineral
spirits in the glass jar. And as you can see, I've
placed mineral spirits just so the crown of the wire mesh is sticking out of
the mineral spirits. And you'll take
your dirty brush. I usually have a paper
towel on hand, also. You'll take your
brush, and I want to show you a close up of this, and you just put it inside
and swirl it around. Rake it over the wire mesh, and then place your brush in
a paper towel and squeeze. You apply a good
amount of pressure, and I just continue this process until I'm no longer removing
paint from the brush. So let's go ahead and
let's do that again. I'm going to use a
new paper towel. I'll do this one more time. Again, you can see me just raking the brush
over the wire mesh. You can wipe off any excess mineral spirits on
the side of your jar. Still getting some paint.
So I'm going to repeat the process looks like
I'm getting close. So let's do that one more time. Some of the color I'm picking up is in the mineral spirits. So I think I've gotten most of the paint out
of the bristles. You see some stains,
but for the most part, I've removed most of the
paint from the bristles. Well, I'd like to clarify something about the
mineral spirits. You do not have to
pour them out and replenish them every time
you clean your brushes. The pigment from the paint will settle at the
bottom of the jar. And accumulate over time. I usually add mineral spirits
as needed as I go and usually wait until
three or four months before I will pour out
the mineral spirits, take out the wire mesh, and take a paper towel and clean the entire
inside of the jar, and then refill it
with mineral spirits. And at that point, I'm ready
to use them again to clean my brushes or use them as
a medium for my paintings.
5. STEP 2: Cleaning Brushes with Soap: So moving on to the next
step in the process, I now have my jar with
the Murphy wood cleaner. And what I'm going to do
is I'm just going to dip my brush into the wood cleaner can wipe off any
excess by doing this, dragging it along
the side of the jar. And now this is the purpose of this tennis ball that
has been cut in half. It fits nicely into
the palm of your hand. I'm left handed, so I
place it in my right hand. You may want to do the opposite, and I'm going to run some
water over the bristles, and I'm going to
place the tennis ball on the palm of my hand. I'm going to swirl it
around, swirl it around. And I'm going to take
my paper towel and I'm going to squeeze applying
a good amount of pressure. There's still a little
bit of paint in there. I'm going to run a little
more water over the bristles. Let me use a new paper towel and just see if I've
gotten everything. You can run your brush
over the paper towel. I think I've removed
most of the paint. There are still some
stains on the bristles, but that is what will
normally happen. So you don't need to
worry about that. As long as you can
run your thumb over the bristles and
they're soft and pliable, then you've got a
clean paint brush.
6. STEP 3: Shaping and Maintaining Brushes: So now I'm using my BNJ
brush cleaner and preserver, and I'm just going to
put a few drops of water in the soap,
just like this. I'm just going to
sprinkle a little bit of water in the soap, and I run my brush
across the soap, kind of like this,
back and forth. Swirl it around, and I can reshape my brush to
the way I want it. Now, this is a long flat, so I'm just shaping it the
way it was originally came, the way I originally bought it. And the soap and the water
are going to evaporate. The soaps going to
dry. It's going to maintain its shape
just like this. So when you're ready to
begin painting again, just run this
through some water, and it should still
hold its form, you have a brush
that's like new.
7. STEP 4: Drying Your Brushes: So now that I have thoroughly cleaned and reshaped this brush, I want to set it aside to dry. And you can do this with
all of the brushes that you clean and reshape
during a single session. An easy way to do
that is to take two brushes that have already
been cleaned and are dry, place them together like
this on a flat surface, and then you'll
take your recently cleaned and reshaped brush or brushes and set them on top like this so that they're at a
slight angle to the table. Angle is so slight
that it's not going to harm or bend the
bristles in any way. But what it does do is it allows any excess
water from the top of the feral to flow out and to evaporate so that
this doesn't rust. I usually wait 12-24 hours before I go back to my brushes. By that time, they're dry, and all I have to
do is dip them in a little bit of water
or run a little bit of water over them under the faucet and wipe them
clean with paper towel. And I've got brushes that
have been thoroughly clean or reshaped and are ready for my next
painting session.
8. Conclusion: I hope you enjoyed this class, and now feel confident
you can keep your brushes clean and maintain
their shape over time. Here's a photo of
my brush before I cleaned it using this
method and after. I'd love to see a before and after photo of your paint brush. If you enjoy this class, please leave a review and check back often
for new classes.
Andrew Deiser
