Heres a quick one: Two studio tips that can save you a lot of time, effort and money.
First: If you are like most painters, your paint tubes are in a big pile, requiring a search mission every morning when you set out your pallate. Here’s a very easy solution that saves a ton of time every day, plus keeps you much better organized: organize your paint tubes on a vertical surface and hand them with office clips. I hang mine in the order I arrange the colors on my pallate, it helps me keep track of my inventory, it frees up space on my table and removes on tof the most nagging barriers to getting started : putting out paint.First: If you are like most painters, your paint tubes are in a big pile, requiring a search mission every morning when you set out your pallate. Heres a very easy solution that saves a ton of time every day, plus keeps you much better organized: organize your paint tubes on a vertical surface and hand them with office clips. I hang mine in the order I arrange the colors on my pallate, it helps me keep track of my inventory, it frees up space on my table and removes on tof the most nagging barriers to getting started : putting out paint.
First: If you are like most painters, your paint tubes are in a big pile, requiring a search mission every morning when you set out your pallate. Heres a very easy solution that saves a ton of time every day, plus keeps you much better organized: organize your paint tubes on a vertical surface and hand them with office clips. I hang mine in the order I arrange the colors on my pallate, it helps me keep track of my inventory, it frees up space on my table and removes on tof the most nagging barriers to getting started : putting out paint.
Leave the clips on the tubes, and hang the tube on the board. I’m using 3/4 inch drywall screws left about 1/6 of the way off the board. It took me about an hour to lay this out and make it. The whole thing is clamped to my table so I can pick it up any move it to my other easel (in another part of the studio) if I work over there.
Another bad habit I have, i set my brushes down and don’t clean them as often as I should. I tried every imaginable method to clean dried brushes (or just wet ones) but eventually I heard of this (I would attribute this but I dont remember where I heard it) ….
Looks pretty bad, huh?
Put it in a glass jar along with all your other dirty brushes – whether the paint is dry or not…in a glass jar…
Pour in Murphy Oil Soap Wood Cleaner. pour about 3 inches into the jar- enough to cover the bristles of all the brushes. make sure they are all flat on the bottom of the jar so they dont get bent….
Let them sit overnight….
24 hrs (max) later, take the brushes out, one by one, and just rinse them out in hot water…
Thepaintwilljustrunout….
rinse all the paint and soap out of the brush…
Voila: good as new. Ive been doing it this way for about three years. you can buy Murphy’s oil soap by the gallon at Home depot etc. remember- use it straight, and rinse them out no more than a day later- longer and the brushes tip might get bent. this will work on any brush, but i dont suggest doing this with your expensive fine-tip detail or watercolor brushes, because the tips might bend from standing too long. But my oil brushes iclean right up, good as new. Try it!
Thanks so much Robert! I love this kind of tips to make our life easier. The cleaning one seems something done specifically for me!
To prevent the tips from getting bent, put a rubber band around the group of brushes and suspend them in the jar but above the bottom so there is no surface contact to bend them. They’ll hang straight down.
The Murphy Oil soap is also what I use for cleaning my metal tub where I clean my brushes while painting. It gets so gunked up…Murphy Oil over night and clean as new…gets all the sticky stuff too! Oh…and one of your paint tubes in your picture has lost its cap. LOL! There needs to be a new capping system for paint…my biggest pet peeve!
I really like the paint tube clip idea. Mark Carder has an interesting method of caring for his brushes – he doesn’t clean them at all, but rather keeps them wet at all times by suspending them in oil. I personally haven’t tried this because I have a bastard cat, but I like the concept.