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Tutorial: Keeping Your Brushes Alive

Tutorial: Keeping Your Brushes Alive

Ever wandered how a brush graveyard looks like? Some of us seen this wast field of broken, damaged brushes – left aside without purpose. A truly sad sight to behold. Now you’re probably looking at the sharp tip of your favorite brush thinking “It won’t happen to you my dear friend. This doesn’t concern you.” Sorry to be a bringer of bad news, but brushes come and go – no way around it. The only thing we can do is to preserve their longevity as much as possible. How to it? The sole purpose of this article is to share some tips that might help you enjoy your brush till it’s late veteranship and avoid this:

Brush Care:

On top of thorough cleaning after each use, the proper care is the key to preserve brush’s shape and thus function. It’s not something to repeat at daily basis, still every now and then a “brush spa”should be performed. Here’s how I do it:

I USED:

  • Airbrush Cleaner
  • Soap
  • Hair repair conditioner
  • Water
  • Paper Towels
  • Small cup

1  First I poured Airbrush Cleaner into a small cup. Next I dipped a tip of the brush, tapping it against a bottom of the cup. The purpose of this step is to ensure that any dried out paint leftovers would get removed from the brush's tip. Once done I cleaned up the tip and metal part of the brush's handle with a paper towel soaked in Airbrush Cleaner. I did this by slowly pulling the brush through the towel, forming it's tip.

2  Step two was to gently clean the tip with soaped fingers and wash it with water.

3  Then I moved to step three, covering the tip with a hair repair conditioner. Then I left the brush to soak with conditioner for about 20 minutes.

4  The final step was to once again clean the brush with water and form the tip, using a paper towel.

Now my brushes rest happily in a brush cup, smiling to me in wait for next project…

Brush Necromancy:

Ok, so you can take care of your brushes to keep them healthy, but what if they’re already ‘on the other side’? Untill recently I was sure that there’s no comming back from the brush’s afterlife, but I was prooven wrong by a friend who linked me a crazy awesome tutorial – and now I will share it with you.

I USED:

  • Iron (yes, like for Ironing clothes)
  • Water

1  I dipped the brush in water...

2  I touched a wet tip of the brush to the hot iron, then started moving it backwards, gently turning it in one direction.

Well – that’s it! Sounds easy? It actually is XD Just take a look at this video…

Scarhandpainting

2 comments so far

ThorPosted on6:56 pm - Nov 16, 2017

I’m definitely trying that trick with the iron.

GoldmundPosted on10:02 am - Nov 21, 2017

Amazing tutorial! Thanks so much for sharing. Keep up the good work 🙂

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