If you have a lot of brushes and palette knives and you use them daily, very often there is a problem of cleaning them. Sometimes, with a creative impulse, you can simply forget that you left the brushes unwashed. To wash them, then it can be very difficult or almost impossible at all. Especially if you used acrylic paints. They dry very quickly. Take it easy with the oil. The brush can still live for a couple of days until you remember about it. But if you leave it for a week, the paint will have time to grasp and harden. Therefore, I advise you to have a “cleansing ritual” for yourself. Especially for those artists who paint often and a lot.
I can tell you by my example. For me personally, this has already become a habit. Every evening, when I finish work in my small studio, I put all the instruments in their places. New works are dried on a separate shelf. The easel is folded and removed to the corner. Then I wash all the jars and fill them with fresh clean water. Then it’s faster and easier to start a new job right away. I put all the brushes in a work towel and take them to the sink. That’s how they dry on my towel. I clean the palette knives once a week.
I hope these little life hacks for artists will make the creative process easier for you.
- The palette knives can be cleaned with a scraper. Please be careful when working with the blade! I advise you to do this work on a surface that you do not feel sorry for. You can use glass.
2. The glass palette can also be cleaned with a scraper. But most of all I liked to use a paper tear-off palette. Very convenient!
3. Brushes can be washed with the following means:
☆ Linseed oil (sunflower oil is possible);
☆ Thinner for artwork;
☆ Water and soap.
Acrylic paints are well washed off with warm water and soap. It is better to wash off oil paints with a special artistic diluent, ordinary sunflower or linseed oil. Then you can rinse it in soapy water.
If you carry out such cleaning after each use, your tools will serve you for more than one year!
Love your tools!
