Brush cleaning

I don’t consider myself to be any kind of expert on brushes. I use mostly natural hair bristle brushes and synthetic sables (I’m too rough on natural sables for them to be cost-effective for most purpose). When painting, I try to keep the paint at the end of the brush, away from the ferrule. Once there’s a noticeable amount of paint in the ferrule, the brush will probably stop holding its shape.

I clean bristles by wiping on a cloth, then washing in a linseed-based brush soap (the excellent “Ugly Dog” soap from Studio Products). It’s important to keep washing, very thoroughly, until all the paint is completely gone.

With synthetic sables, I use Ivory Soap (a white hand soap without much in the way of perfumes or other additives). Once clean, sable rounds can be “pointed” back to shape by smacking them lightly against a hard surface.

Nothing sophisticated, but it seems to work for me.

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