How to preserve brushes after painting mural, Oil Painting

1. You should wash the pen right after every mural, oil painting, avoiding the pen sticking to the paint overnight, not to say that after a few days (the paint will dry up, damage the bristles).

2. Avoid soaking the pen in oil or pen cleaning solution day in and day out, as this will damage the bristles and the wooden handle is soaked in oil or the solution will swell and peel off the varnish. In particular, you should never soak the pen vertically on the bristles at the bottom of the oil or pen cleaner, or wash it by brushing the tip of the pen on the bottom of the bottle because the bristles will become frayed.

The pen cleaner is specialized so that the pen tip can be soaked in the cleaning solution without the tip being bent

3. Avoid using a brush with multiple materials, but keep separate oil paint brushes, acrylic paint sets, watercolor painters. Don't use the same pen to both sweep the vanish and the gesso.

4. For oil paints, before washing the pen, use a white spirit cloth impregnated with the paint on the pen tip. The pen can be washed with white gasoline, odorless white gasoline (OMS), then rinsed with soapy water, then cold water, or you can use a water-based solution to wash it, like Royal Talens' Water-Based Supercleaner or Perfect Clean Holbein. Water-based solutions have the advantage of being non-toxic, and odorless. Do not use hot water to wash the pen because the bristles will curl, especially the artificial hair, and the metal neck will expand and loosen from the pen handle. Avoid using harsh detergents to clean the pen, as this will damage the bristles. While washing, pay attention to wash thoroughly so that no paint remains at the base of the pen, because the paint accumulating at the base of the pen hardens will make the pen tip lose its elasticity. The white pig feather pen, after washing it, must be as white as new. For acrylic paints, just rinse with water.

Royal Talens water-based Super Cleaner,
Used to wash oil paints, acrlylic, powder colors, watercolors.
Even a pen stained with hardened paint can be rinsed off, after being soaked overnight in this solution.

5. After washing, use a soft cloth to absorb the water, let the pen dry naturally horizontally, or hang it upright, the tip of the pen facing downwards (especially large pens or varnish pens). Avoid using heat (like a hair dryer) to dry the pen as the bristles will be curled.

6. You can use wax to preserve the pen tip. For example, Japanese firm Kusakabe produces "Brush softer", containing silicon and surface tension reducer (surfactant). After washing the pen, plug the tip of the pen into the wax bottle, pull it out for about 1 minute, then remove the wax with a soft cloth, and shape the tip of the pen to point or flatten it like new. Such maintained pens will always retain elasticity and shape.