Tips on cleaning paintbrushes, painting roller cleaning and paint pads.
Cleaning Paint Brushes
You visited an art gallery recently and you went gaga over those mystique hues. In the mysterious vibes of those moments, you were spurred to try your hand with the brush. So, you went out to the stationery store close to your house and bought yourself those lovely-looking bristles. What you must remember is that being an artist is not all about just creating great artwork. You need to maintain your brush if you want it to work wonders for you. Once you have invested in good painting tools that can last you a few years, you will have to maintain them properly for them to last that long. One of the first things that you will have to do is to clean your painting tools after painting. Cleaning and removing paint from a paintbrush, roller and a paint pad is not an easy task. So, here are a few easy tips! Follow them and your tools will look as good as new, once cleaned that is.
- While painting with water based paints, clean brushes after every two hours. Clean it once you are done with the painting.
- Remove extra paint from the pad and the brush. Use a brush-cleaning tool with teeth to scrap the paint off.
- Make a solution of one gallon of warm water and ½ a cup of fabric softener. The softener is a wetting agent, which reduces the surface tension of water when it dissolves in it. This helps the paint to dissolve quickly. Make many gallons of this solution.
- Dip the brush or pad into the solution and move it around while counting till ten. The paint will displace itself from the brush and settle at the bottom of the bucket.
- Dry the brush in a paintbrush spinner to remove water from the brush. You might have to make your own spinner for this purpose. Take a 5-gallon bucket with a lid. Make an eight-inch hole in the middle of the lid. Place a plastic trash bag inside the bucket and replace the lid. Now with the contents of the bucket, the splatter can remain inside the plastic trash bag. Dispose of the plastic bag.
- Do not use dish wash soap to clean brushes. It will cause the bristles of the brush to stick together and this is not something you would want happening.
- After cleaning the brush in the warm water and fabric softener solution there is no need to rinse it in water. Repeatedly washing the brush in this solution, allows the fabric softener to coat the bushing and the bristles, which will allow the paint to flow smoothly from the brush.
- Use the same method to clean rollers and paint pads. Cleaning paint from rollers takes some more time and a greater number of dips in the solution, but the end result is the same.
Keep your paint brush in the right condition, and it is sure to work the way you want it to. So, what're you really waiting for? Pull out your paint brush and start creating captivating artwork on paper!