Monday, February 05, 2007

Top Tips for Acrylic Painting – Number 4

The Type of Brushes to Buy

Previous painting tips have mentioned that acrylic paints dry very quickly. If the paint dries on your brush it will ruin the brush and you’ll need to throw the brush away.

The way to avoid this problem is to keep your brushes wet during the painting session. This can be done by storing the brushes in a shallow container. An old ice cube container is ideal as it allows the brushes to be stored on their sides, which stops the brush tips from getting damaged or bent.

Fill the container with enough water to cover the brush tips. Rinse your brush and then store it in this container until you need to use it again.

Choose Nylon Brushes

Buy good quality nylon brushes. Good quality brushes give a better result and are less likely to shred.

Nylon brushes can be stored (on their sides) in water, but other types of brushes would be damaged by this treatment. In particular, sable brushes would not put up with this kind of treatment.

At the end of a painting session you can spend a bit of time and thoroughly clean the brushes before storing them. However I usually just leave them in the container of water until the next painting session, and that works too.

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