Olive oil for cleaning brushes?

[Chuck Yokota]

I know a painter who has recently taken to cleaning brushes with olive oil, to avoid turpentine. I have never heard of this, and I'm wondering why it wouldn't be more common, unless there were some downside. Anyone know about this?

[Michele Rushworth]

One of the artists (a professional portrait painter) in the Tony Ryder workshop I'm taking this week swears by this as an excellent brush cleaner. She then washes out the olive oil with soap and water.

[Marvin Mattelson]

I've been using M Graham & Co. Walnut oil to clean my brushes. http://www.mgraham.com/html/nontoxicpainting.htm]www.mgraham.com

Step #1 Remove as much paint as possible using a dry rag (paper towel)

Step #2 Dip into brush washing container and wipe again

Step #3 Repeat step #2 until most color residue is gone

Step #4 Squiggle brush against screen at bottom and wipe off (repeat until brush is clean)

Step #5 Repeat step #4 in second brush washing container until brush is clean

Step #6 Wash with soap and water until you have perfectly clean suds. I use Murphy's Oil Soap.

Step #7 Reshape brush and lay flat to dry

Here is the brush washer I use. Sold by Jerry's Artarama. http://www.jerrysartarama.com/art-su.../0053189000000

Your brushes will love you!

[Minh Thong]

Dumb question time: When I clean brushes with brush soap I will swish them around first in one direction, then the other, to work up a lather which is then massaged into the full length of the brush before rinsing. I repeat the process until no more color is evident in the lather and the brush 'squeaks' when rinsed.

By swirling the brushes around in this manner, am I destroying the 'flagging' of the bristles and making it difficult to maintain the shapes? Should I be swiping them back and forth 'with the grain' of the specific brush type rather than swirling them?

Minh

[Chuck Yokota]

Michele, Marvin, much thanks for your helpful replies.

Minh, as I haven't a clue, I hope someone will be able to answer this for you and all interested.

[Celeste McCall]

Dear Chuck,

Olive oil is good for our arteries also.

Speaking of cleaning brushes, I saw on the internet that the Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner will also clean dried paint brushes about as good as anything.

My husband also uses it for cleaning his Harley Davidson.

[Timothy C. Tyler]

You must remove any weird junk from your brushes before you paint again. If you clean with any of these special ideas/formulas you've got to, at some point get that oil out of your brushes unless you want to paint with olive oil.

[Debra Jones]

When I was a kid in school, I swear I remember them telling us to store cleaned brushes with some grade of motor oil dip to keep the edge from fraying. It was a very long time ago and my 15 year lay off left no clue as to why.

But I tried vegetable oils. I was leaving dirty brushes in a jar of Wesson oil until I had a chance to get to soap and water. It was working nicely. The brushes were not so dry and I seemed to be able to simply wipe paint out of them. Since I sort of forgot a few during a watercolor spurt, I found it does eventually turn to gum. Many of these brushes were left for dead. During this era, I did find one of my paintings was suffering from eternal drying. I think the lack of removing all the oil somehow really messed the drying time of my one and only important work.

I recently got the infamous Ugly Dog soap from studioproducts.com. It is made with linseed oil and resin that work like cream rinse on the bristles. It is really amazing. I have recycled over half of my dead brushes. I think it has a lot to do with the oils which break down the paint instead of eradicting, like solvents. I must say I feel a bit of an evangelical fervor about the stuff, so I will admit prejudice.
dj*

[Timothy C. Tyler]

Yes, the key is for your brushes to be clean-not oiled.

[Mike Dodson]

Thanks for the recommendation here Marvin. I received my brush washers and M.Graham walnut oil a few days ago and they are great.

And yes, I could hear my brushes breathe a sigh of really once they were placed on my brush rack to dry.