joeI want to proudly say I’ve stolen a tip from Sue Warne’s Arty Talk. It’s a great tip, but requires a bit of patience….
Saved Brushes !!
The Darrell Crow UK floral workshop was 4 weeks ago…… During this workshop Darrell used a medium which contained a dryer to enable paintings to dry quickly. The paintings that I have been looking after were dry in just 3 days. Now, when I went through some of my floral brushes, I noticed that 2 of the wide flat brushes were rock hard. I can only think that they weren’t cleaned properly and had ‘set’. These brushes have been soaking alternately for the last 3 weeks in low odour white spirit and baby oil. They are still almost as hard as they were when I discovered them. I also had a 1 inch landscape brush which had oil paint on it. (i had wrapped it in clingfilm as i was going to use it the following day, and promptly forgot.) This too had gone rock hard and the bristles would barely part. So it too has been sitting in the thinners then baby oil along with the floral brushes.
Today I got fed up with looking at them but before I threw them away i thought i would try one last thing.
I got a fine hair comb and labourously combed through all 3 brushes until the bristles parted. I was rough with them at first as i had nothing to lose. The bristles started to flex and i can say all 3 brushes are absolutely as good as new. I’ve groomed them with baby oil and they are as supple as ever.
Hope this tip helps anyone else with brushes almost ‘beyond repair’.
Sue Warne