Cleaning Oil Paints from brushes

Aisling&M

Hi, I've read a lot of posts on here but only recently got back into painting and creating.
ONE of the biggest challenges I face is cleaning my brushes. I use oil paint and quite a lot of it and I've gotten the special soap for washing brushes but really fairy liquid works a bit better for me.
I'm wondering if I'm missing some trick to quicker cleaning? At the moment it takes about 5+ minutes for each brush and because I use every clean brush I have to avoid washing every week or so I have about 30 to wash.

Any suggestions?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Kennedy's do a little product called "artist's gel" by Windsor and Newton. Comes in a tube like the paint itself, this works very well for me. Squeeze alittle into the palm of your hand and rub the bursh in it firmly, takes about a 30 seconds a brush.
Might be a tad expenisve though if you;ve got a lot of them.

Aisling&M

Thank you. I'll look out for that.
I sometimes end up literally finger-painting to avoid washing them!

snorlax

I used to use white spirits but the smell of the stuff was awful and the fact it distroyed some of my brushes! nearly put me off oils altogether...

artieanna

I use white spirits to remove the paint, then give them a sudsy wash with wash up liquid. This will prevent the brushes being destroyed.

White spirits or turpentine is almost a must have for thinning oil paint for underpainting and for washing brushes. The fumes off them are strong, definitly not good if you paint in a bedroom.

coolwings

I use a 3 stage cleaning process.

after wiping excess paint onto cloth rag ...
dip & swill round in 1st jamjar turps to destroy bulk paint. Top back on jar to contain nasty vapours
back to rag to wipe off excess.
into 2nd jamjar - cleaner turps - dip & swill to get deeper into bristles and destroy remainder paint.
back onto rag - wipe - top back on jar.
squirt dishwasher liquid into palm of hand - mash brush round in it - wash under tap to remove stink.

A handy thing is to place some junk steel mesh, old spring, chicken wire tea strainer shape thing in the jamjar ... .the paint falls through it to the bottom and away from the brushes.

artieanna

coolwings wrote: »

A handy thing is to place some junk steel mesh, old spring, chicken wire tea strainer shape thing in the jamjar ... .the paint falls through it to the bottom and away from the brushes.

MMM great idea to stop the waste mixing in with the turps/spirits.

I seem to be forever changing turps and spirits into clean jars. The waste on the bottom has to be cleaned out or I'll be stirring it up every time I put a brush in it..