Brush storage

[tmwilliams]

How do you all keep your brushes when not painting? I know I should know this so don’t yell, but besides keeping them “bristles up” in a glass, what’s best?

Thomas

[CharM Moderator Watercolour Forum]

Mine are typically stored with the brushes standing up.  It’s not good. They should be dried with the brush fibres down.  Then lay them out flat.

Char --

CharMing Art -- "Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art." Leonardo DaVinci

[janinco]

I always dry them at a slight slant downward toward the brush end for a day to keep water from pooling in the ferrule, then I put them in a heavy beer stein with the hair pointed up.

I use two brush holders, the one in front is about 1/2″ taller than the other to get the slant.

Jan

You can get one like this from art stores and just put a little foam under one to make it taller.

TwoStone Studio

[Yorky Administrator Ormskirk]

I store my brushes flat when dry.

Doug

Some of my paintings over the years
We must leave our mark on this world

[hblenkle]

I live in a Chicago suburb. I clean out my brush with water then blot with a paper towel. I put the brush in a bamboo brush carrier left open on my painting table.

[Paint in Hiding]

After painting and cleaning my brush thoroughly, I just lay it between the grooves of my water cup. I believe the original is by faber castell and you can get look alikes on websites like aliexpress, though I got mine from a local shop. As for other brushes that I seldom use, I store it in a container with the bristles pointing upwards.

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[tmwilliams]

It looks as if I am not so out of bounds … I do clean mine – using brush soap – and dry them flat on a towel (with the bristles hanging over the edge.  I store them upright in a glass, and probably will continue as it’s the best option at the moment.

Thanks for all your great feedback!

Thomas

[Clifton K Prince]

jars, boxes, i dunno …

Seriously, I clean my brushes pretty carefully, and pretty regularly, and I make sure that they get dried out while lying flat. Otherwise, I just stand ’em up in any reasonable container.

Certified Closet Management Engineer, Slung Watercolor Society of America

[star fisher]

When dry, my brushes are stored bristles up in a Winsor&Newton coffee cup.  When wet and while drying, they are laying flat on the scalloped edge of a Faber-Castell water cup.  I bought a brush dryer that has a coil spring on a holder above a cup so that they could hang bristles down during drying, but the handles pop out of the coil spring and drop the brushes onto their bristles.  I think being dropped onto their bristles is worse than laying the brushes flat during drying, so the brush drier has been retired.

[JLY]

I use, wash and store all my brushes down. These are two of the ways I  have done it.

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[oldey]

I let water color brushes dry flat on a rack or towel then store flat or in a jar.  My chinese brushes I store hanging down.

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[Rick2009]

You can make loops and tape them to your brushes to hang and store them.
You can get hooks and wire at the hardware store to make your own racks if you want to.

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[Aes]

Semi-free and does the job well enough ?

C&C Always welcome.

[Que Sera]

JLY wrote:

I use, wash and store all my brushes down. These are two of the ways I have done it.

That’s interesting, JLY, I was going to post a picture of my brushes in my brush stand, but I see you have already done it for me.  Do you have the exact same stand, or just one like it?

I previously posted IMG_9248.jpg on the old forum.  Glad you liked it.

I only dry my brushes in the rack.  Once dry I store them bristles up in jam jars, like AESmith, so that I can use the rack for make up brushes as that’s what these racks are sold for.

QS

In all these things we are more than conquerors.

[JLY]

Que Sera,

I am very OCD about my brushes. Here is a snap shot of all the ways I store my brushes. The brushes in the background of the second photo are still in their packaging. I try to save the plastic tips and re-use them when possible. After cleaning the brushes, I reshape them with a bit of DaVinci soap. It’s a purgatory of my own making! :-D

Not very Que sera of me. The WN series seven are still in the original boxes. When I grow up, I will use them. :-D

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