Oil Painting

Spicy Lauren

Tried out painting with Oil for the first time last night.
Whats the best way to clean my paintbrushes?

red dave

I think with methylated spirits, although I'm not 100% sure of that

bounty_hunter

White spirits work a treat for anything oil-based.
For the record, you mentioned you started last night, which would suggest you haven't cleaned your brushes yet. It's always best to stand them straight in a jar of white spirits as soon as you're finished to avoid dried on paint and ruined brushes.

Fajitas!

What are you mixing the paints with?

I use vegetable oil, clean my brush's with elbow grease and soap!

Monkey

Clean your brushes with white spirits. Only add linseed oil (not the the type for treating wood) to your paint not vegetable oil (!?!) Don't go near methylated spirit. If you want to leave your brushes to stand for a couple of hours just stand them in some water - this prevents them from drying.

snorlax

funny i always find that white spirits cleans them grand but has a bad habit of burning off all the paint on the handels of the brushes. i had a lovely set of brushes worth a fair few quid and it managed to wreck some of them. maybe i added too much to clean them.

also my mom has a tendency to go mad if she gets a whiff of white spirits in the house as she seems paranoid im going to use the jaycloth she uses for cleaning the dishes.

Karoma

I've never heard of vegetable oil being used...
White spirit/'turps' does the job - and I've found that any brush will get destroyed soon enough with the amount of cleaning required. (Buy the stuff from a hardware store, not an art/crafts shop - bigger bottle for less money... )

Fajitas!

It's not used very often because it takes longer to dry, but I prefer the results, and it's better for thicker paint.

It's fairly easy to clean then once you use a soap like fairy etc, that's used for grease.

Yv

The best thing is white spirits. As was mentioned already, get it in a hardware store

Google tells us:

Some random site wrote:

How do I clean oil paint from my brushes?

Cleaning your brushes is a very important step in ensuring a longer life for your brush. In the case of oil paints, the brush should be cleaned off thoroughly starting with solvent and rags or tissue. Once the brush is fairly clean from the solvent, rub the bristles in a glass or plastic jar with either a brush conditioner or a human hair shampoo. Give the brush a good final rinse and squeeze out any water. Dry the brush with its hair end lower than the handle end to prevent water from loosening the handle and the ferrule. Dry brushes can be stored bristle up in a jar, or laid flat. Protective storage containers are available too.

Maybe the shampoo's going a bit far but that's basically it. Also, once you've cleaned your brushes with the white spirits leave the WS in the jar, screw on a lid & let it sit for a few days. The paint will settle on the bottom & you can drain off most of the (now-clean) WS & reuse it. Also, never pour it down the sink or lots of cute fuzzy animals / fish / plants will probably suffer for it.

artieanna

yes white spirit is the way to go and yes a final rince in shampoo or wash up liquid afterwards keep the brushes in great shape. The shampoo will rince out the white spirit (solvent) and stops it eating into the brushes. Stand the brushes, bristles up in a jar to dry. I always do it this way. The bristles will wear down eventually with use.

Spicy Lauren

Nice one lads, much appreciated.

Lauren