Cleaning brushes....

Being excited about getting paint out of brushes may be boring to most, but when they are such an integral part of your work, it's important. I just learned a new way to get dried paint out of my bristle brushes. If you put them in rubbing alcohol for a bit, it seems to break the dried paint up and then you can clean them like normal. I did not know this until this past week. I currently use Masters brush cleaner, or some sort of liquid soap to clean my brushes, then hair conditioner (usually the kind that comes free with my hair color!!) to keep them soft. That has always worked, but I still would get a build up of dried paint up by the metal part of my brush. This method seems to break it down and my brushes don't appear to be damaged. I learned this in school this week.

This little ATC size plein air oil painting will be available for sale on ebay after 9/10/2011 by clicking the link at the above right.