Cleaning Oil Brushes - NO SOLVENTS!
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- čas přidán 29. 11. 2017
- Avoid solvents for cleaning artist oil brushes. Stop throwing out good brushes. In this video, we bust the myth that strong solvents are required to clean hard oil painting brushes. The new brush soaps really work. If you enjoy before and after images, you will love this video. We provide several step-by-step examples to show how to clean both bristle and synthetic brushes.
7:47 is actually when she started cleaning the brushes
You are so good to me
Thx
The real mvp
thank you xxx
Wrong. 10:03 she strat.
So helpful! I have been avoiding trying oil painting as I was concerned about turpentine and other solvents.
I agree, solvents give me a headache
An absolutely wonderful demonstration and explanation of products. I have brushes that are over 30 years old and am in the process of prepping for painting again. CZcams resources like YOU are just indispensable for painters like me, who are in the process of catching up! All the best to you and this is a coffee break well spent!
Frederick Dunn I am glad to hear you are painting again. Enjoy saving those brushes. Thanks for your comments. It motivates us to do more!
This is exactly what I needed! You would think cleaning a brush would be common sense but apparently I’ve been doing it wrong this whole time! (I mainly use watercolors, so I use water to clean) I never knew to leave soap in the brushes, or how much solvent to use or even that it could be reused like that (again, like watercolor, I thought once the solvent became discolored that it needed replaced) and I never was able to find anyone who could help or explain this stuff thoroughly. Thank you for this!
andi graham Here’s a good tip for cleaning between colours while watercolour painting: czcams.com/video/XRnwCR1xSL0/video.html
Thank you so much for the video. I would love for schools to input this into the lesson plans.
Thanks for this! I usually use acrylics but am playing with oil and last night I cleaned up with mineral spirits and decided I was never using that again, there had to be a better way. And here you are, showing a better way :)
I didn't realize Gamsol was that different from Mineral Spirit, how eye opening, thank you for this video !! So many helpful points & so much important information for painters!
Gamsol is a game changing product.
I'm a brush cleaning maniac, and this video freaked me up!... My brushes will never be like this. I use Old Masters brush cleaner and I love it!
You did a good job I tend to clean as I go with pink hand soap cleaner .
If I have a forgotten brush that paint dried in, I soak the brush in Turpenoid Natural (only up TO the ferrule, not way up toward the handle!) then the next day I can manipulate the brush a few times that day and at the end of the day it’s ready to wash like normal in the Saavy Soap. No digging, scraping, or harsh treatment. A very cheap brush soaked half way up the ferrule one time, dropped all the bristles. It was craft grade. Just don’t soak too deeply and usually it’s fine. All my artist quality brushes g he ave had no problems for the past 30 years this way. If it’s really stubborn brush, I soaked up to a week. The colder it is, the longer it takes. For this reason I won’t use Turpenoid Natural in my painting. I if ad it one time ruin not only taking the dried color off a painting I was trying to remove an area, it also ruined the gesso (dumb, I know, but lesson learned).
Thank you so much and boy to I brush clean !!!!! That is an incredible result !
That is amazing how clean you got those brushes, great job 😳😊
i guess water color is better... or poster color, no cleaning.
Thank you! Cheers!
I don't use petroleum-based solvents at all. Instead I use vegetable oil (grocery store safflower or walnut oil, which are drying oils, are the best)--I wipe as much paint from the brush with a paper towel, then swish it in a jar of "dirty" (already used) oil and wipe that off, repeating until the brush is clean (obviously it will take longer to clean a Pthalo color than say a yellow ocher). Then you can finish with master's or Murphy's Oil Soap or the like. Non-toxic and works like a charm.
thankyou for this help i watched it twice
my brushes need this bad
Best video ever on cleaning brushes! Thanks so much!
Great demonstration video, The Paint Spot is always very informative and knowledgeable!
Hi Peggy-Lynn! I hope you have been well.
Thank you so much for your video and caring about envoirenment!
Master's does work extremely well on acrylic brushes as well
I was finding how to clean my best thank you so much you helped me 😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊
Thank you, Stay safe and blessed
How do you clean your brushes while painting? And the after session cleanup should be with Dawn dish washing soap.
Mike L While painting, I recommend wiping colour from the brush first then a quick dip in a little jar of Gamsol and more wiping. I try to REUSE the Gamsol as much as possible.
Yes you are right! Dish soaps work great if you can clean brushes right after using.
Mike L Here is a video on making Paint from the sludge in your Gamsol Cleaner! czcams.com/video/g23BbiMvrEU/video.html
Mike L Here is my suggestion for use of painting water for acrylics and watercolour. It is the exact same process just imagine Gamsol instead of water. czcams.com/video/XRnwCR1xSL0/video.html
You are amazing. Thanking you. This is JUST what I needed!!
Glad it was helpful!
Great job cheers Graham
Wonderful video, thanks for being so informative 🥳
Thanks!
This video was very informative! Thank you! Still, I wonder if it's alright to flush oil paint and the soap down the drain? I mean it will go into the ocean or nature and be potentially harmful. Is there a way that I can clean my bushes without having to flush it down the drains? I biggest concern is the paint itself, even though I wonder if there exists a paint soap/ paint thinner or solvents that is not harmful in any way to the environment. I just love making oilpaintings but I don't want to harm my local environment. Thank you for the reply
Before that there is still a sewage treatment plant, there is at least most a small part in the ocean. The sewage treatment plants can not fill everything.
I always let it evaporate and pack the container in the special thrash bin for chemicals.
Most pigments are large enough to be caught the filters. Linseed oil, walnut oil, stand oil are all natural plant oils. I agree collecting water and using evaporation is the best.
It makes sense that you are from Norway, because at first I had assumed you were American and was utterly shocked that you were so concerned for the environment lol
@@calashtrash791 Oh really? Is that not common in America? Anyways thank you all for the many replies. I've found a method that works very well. I've filled a large glass bottle with a paint thinner/cleaner and put metal netting in the middle. All of the paint falls to the bottom and the cleaner remains seperate. When the glass is full i can deliver it to my local recycling station for paint. :-) !
Thank you!! This is so very helpful ❤️🙌. my little sister use all my brushes for oil painting yet i dont have any solvent haha.
Glad it was helpful!
How do you clean the oil brushes as you are using them ? I don’t want to use Turpin if I can avoid it but don’t want to ruin my work piece Help
Thank you so much for this very informative video!!
Could you please share which brush soap you used for your last set of brushes?...The ones that were very hardened? Thank you sooooo much!!
Edit: I have a few Purdy paint brushes (nylon & polyester) that are all dried out with oil based paint on them. They’re literally hard as a rock and I’m looking for the best solvent to use. Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated!!!
Awesome video thank you
great excellent!
Thank you so much for sharing valuable information and caring environment 🌎❤️
Great video! Thank you
thanks alot.....................................truth lies in detail and i loved it
Thank you!
Thank you !!! Great informative video
I know it,s a demo but to let your brushes get like that in the first place is pure laziness but i have been lazy to lol
pete sinclair,s creation station I agree!This was a collect from a friend, an amazingly and prolific artist plus a busy working mom! I could not resist the challenge. I was grateful for the excellent opportunity to test my cleaners!
You are a master! Thank you so much for this informative video, u helped a lot
It is so help helpfully
What can u do if u don’t have any because I just got my new set of oil paint but I don’t want to spend money on the products
Gamsol makes me dizzy. Not using that again ever
WOW! Thank you so much for explaining all of this. :)
wowwwww thanks a lot madam
"So, I was looking for information guides from old women on facebook" -Your first mistake. There's a reason the phrase "old wive's tales" does not mean "truthful explanation of how things work in the real world".
This looks more like a research video than a cleaning guide. I appreciate that you're going through the process of testing different things to see what'll work. That's not as common as it should be, and is a main reason behind why circulated posts on facebook have a very poor reputation for truthfulness.
The moral of the story is hard brushes can be saved. Use solvent as little as possible. Work in the soap, rinse and repeat, repeat, repeat would have been a very boring, short and unconvincing video. This one proved all the brush cleaning soaps worked. I hope artists use them. Thanks for watching and commenting. I will try to be more exact with my video titles.
Thank you soooo much!!
You're welcome!
I am so new to oil painting - are these what I would use DURING painting as well as end of day clean up? Thank you.
Oils are slow drying. While you are painting it is good to have a few brushes to keep light and dark colour separate. Save the paint. Clean brushes less.
Soap is not used during painting. To change colour quickly, wipe brush with a clean cloth. Drip it in Gamsol. Wipe again.
Pour Gamsol into a small palette cup. There is no need to have a large container for solvent to slosh brushes around in. That is wasteful and hurts brushes.
Just quickly dip brush and wipe thoroughly until clean enough for the next colour.
I hope this helps :)
@@ThePaintSpotEdmonton Thank you for a thorough and clear response. Lavender oil has been recommended to me in lieu of Gamsol - any thoughts on lavender oil? Thank you, so pleased to have found your channel. All the best.
Hello! I just spent a ton of money on Bob Ross Painting stuff and one of the things the instructions says is too use only mineral solvents. The one I got didn't work well enough, plus it is costly for the amount I got. So are they wrong? I can use brush soaps? How about just vinegar (Apple /distilled) would that work? I heard some uses baby oil?
Gary Tucker Mineral Spirits in a small jar (keep the lid on jar when not immediately using to avoid harmful VOC from evaporating into your studio unnecessarily) will be fine if you need to thoroughly clean brushes when changing back to a lighter colour. For clean up, at the end of painting session, I prefer wiping thoroughly with a cloth and then using dish soap or hand soap is fine. The brush cleaners in my video are for when the brush has been left too long and need aggressive cleaning. Happy painting!
Can we use shampoo for cleaning
Shampoos are good for cleaning brushes, especially watercolour and gouache brushes. For natural hair brushes like squirrel, goat, red sable, mongoose, shampoos are gentle, and some have built in conditioners to help hairs last longer. If the oil or acrylic paint is more than three days old. Shampoo may not be strong enough to breakdown the cured or dry paint.
@@ThePaintSpotEdmonton thank you very much
Your choice in music almost made me leave the page, thanks for the video.
Sorry picking music from limited free sources is hard. I though the old fashion. song title had something to do with bath bubbles....
Great vide but that music, agh!!!
just skip to 10:03.
Now, how long did all of this take?
No gloves?
I did mention and write “wear gloves” in the video. But the brush cleaners I chose are soaps not solvents. No mineral spirits and no turpentine were used in my paints either.
@@ThePaintSpotEdmonton No I mean some of the paints themselves can have toxic elements. Like cobalt blues, any of the cadmium colours, and titanium or lead whites. All those are no bueno to have on your skin.
Maybe do more research before you tell people it’s not toxic. “Gamsol” by Gambling, is orderless mineral spirits , aka paint thinner. It has 1/5 the aromatic solvents of regular mineral spirits. It says right on the label to use with ventilation. The reason for that is that ALL mineral spirits are toxic. It’s is just LESS toxic, not non-toxic. I know it says “no harmful aromatics”., But it is still a toxic item. The fumes are better than before. Maybe you were thinking of a different product.
Cady Kyst
It is non-toxic when used as recommended. Most solvents available to artists are produced for the industrial paint industry where solvent strength and low cost take priority over safety. Gamsol is different. It comes from a family of materials used in products that come into more intimate contact with the body such as cosmetics, hand cleaners, and cleaning food service equipment.
For an artist, there are a number of factors to consider when judging a solvent’s safety. Aromatic solvents are the most harmful type of mineral spirits. Gamsol is an odorless mineral spirit which has all of the aromatic solvents refined out of it - less than .005% remains. In addition, Gamsol has a slow evaporation rate, a high flash point, and is not absorbed through healthy skin.
These factors have led to Gamsol being the Standard for Studio Safety, and the solvent of choice among artists and instructors in classrooms and home studios.
The Paint Spot , “Not harmful” in small amounts. Not “non-toxic” however. Right on the can says,” Petroleum distillate. Conforms to ASTM D- 4236. Danger! Combustible, harmful or fatal if swallowed. Harmful by breathing vapors. Exposure may result in nausea, headache or confusion, instability, or irritation of the eyes or chest.” These are the symptoms of acute toxic exposure Harm is a matter of degree. But I want to paint another 30+ years. . If it is a petroleum distillate it is inherently toxic. It cannot be made non-toxic. If it were non-toxic the words “Harmful by breathing vapors” would not be on the can. I would never tell my students it isn’t toxic. I would tell them it is the safest thinner for the studio. BTW, a Non-toxic way to recondition dried oil paint brushes is to soak them in a warm room in Turpenoid Natural. This stuff dissolves dried paint (a terrible idea for a painting medium.) It also made the gesso permanently spongy. I lost a canvas to it and the company changed their label so that it now says use sparingly up to 25%. It will clean the pallet of dried stuff. In warm conditions this may take one or two hours and in cool conditions much longer. It is not a petroleum distillate but citrus based. It says it works on acrylics. I have not tried that.
Cady Kyst Please contact Gamblin directly for more information about Gamsol.
Can't believe anybody would let their brushes get like that. There is a lot of money in those brushes. Why don't you clean the ferrels too?
please do not use dawn dish soap on Bob Ross style hog bristle brushes. They go all poofy like a poodle on a humid day.
can linseed oil clean your brushes effectively?
ChillSloth Linseed is an oil that dries hard. It is a medium to paint with to help colour bind to the canvas. It can help clean a brush between colour changes during a painting session.
Jack Richeson makes a linseed soap which is soluble and help to breakdown linseed oil.
Some people use a cooking oil like vegetable oil. This is useful for before the paint dries in the brush. Be sure to thoroughly wash the non-drying oil out of a brush before starting the next painting session or a spot of your painting may not dry.
@@ThePaintSpotEdmonton thank you so much!
@@ThePaintSpotEdmonton Can kitchen oil help clean a brush between colour changes during a painting session?
Great video
talk about a lazy artist, how in the heck did she leave that many brushes to dry out with paint in them, I can understand one or two forgotten, but a whole bucket? My husband used two of my best brushes to paint with oil based house paint.
Yes, I agree “clean your brushes!”. But life gets in the way for working-mom, artists. A collision of deadlines and responsibilities happens so sometimes the laundry adds up and a bucket of brushes gets forgotten. I was happy to help. She got brushes back and we got great content for our video.
Check out our artist talk “Domestic Reject with Andrea Larson”. These were not her brushes but she paints about the challenge I am talking about.
czcams.com/video/bnZ6YjQC4lI/video.html
@@ThePaintSpotEdmonton , I have been a single mom, raising four children, but my brushes are so precious and expensive to me as an artist finishing college alone, that I made sure they were well cared for.
@@TheLamba444 amazing
exactly !!!! if you have $400 worth of brushes you dont toss them in a nasty plastic bucked and "just forget". Look at those brushstems!! never cleaned once (probl because it looks so trad arty) My brushes wear out before they ever get to look like that.
i wish i could bring my brushes to you :( and I can't reshape it again.
If it is a synthetic brush, try dripping it quickly in boiling water.
@@ThePaintSpotEdmonton omg thank you so much!
Save your money, Dr. Martins peppermint soap, Mico water (used to clean your face) and a drop of goo gone. You will be left with soft, clean viable brushes!
You ddidnt show the prosses!
Never mind, you did...😅
It is a longer video than most people expect but toxicity of solvents is a huge concern and misconception. I thought it was important to spend some time on it.
I use gamsol to clean my brushes
Kiri will this work on hardened brushes containing oil paint?
Kristen Hill yes this video was all about hardened and nearly hardened paint brushes.
I wonder why she let her brushes get so icky to begin with 😏
It is not my place to judge. I suspect while juggling life’s challenges: working a full-time work, raising a young family and having an amazing art career then more than a few brushes get wrecked. It is for this reason I made the video. Leave no brush behind :).