If you are an oil painter like me that is allergic to harsh chemicals and solvents like paint thinner and turpentine, then you are probably searching for ways to clean your artist oil paint brushes without paint thinner using safe methods like baby oil, pink soap, dish soap or perhaps cleaning products that you haven’t heard of. So I did a search online and found a bunch of great videos that demonstrate and discuss just how to clean your brushes without solvents or anything that may harm you.
How to Clean Oil Paint Brushes Without Toxins or Solvents
Learn how to clean your oil paint brushes in a very natural and non-toxic way. Visit the artist’s youtube channel here.
Follow this link to visit the Earth Paint’s website to check out what products they offer!
Cleaning Oil Brushes – No Solvents
Avoid solvents for cleaning artist oil brushes. Stop throwing out good brushes. In this video, we bust the myth that strong solvents are required to clean hard oil painting brushes. The new brush soaps really work. If you enjoy before and after images, you will love this video. We provide several step-by-step examples to show how to clean both bristle and synthetic brushes. Visit the artist’s youtube channel here.
How to Clean Oil Paint from a Brush Without Solvents
A simple, safe, non-toxic way to clean oil paint out of your brush without using any harsh solvents. Stage 1: Mineral Oil or Baby Oil Stage 2: Mineral Oil and Liquid Detergent Stage 3: Liquid Detergent and Water Nore more mineral spirits or turpentine; just soap and baby oil. Visit the artist’s youtube channel here.
How to Make an Oil Jar for Cleaning Brushes
I love painting with oil paints, but there are many challenges in terms of personal and earth health. I have adopted many safer art studio practices over time, and here’s a great way to clean your oil painting brushes while painting. And you won’t have to change the oil very often at all, like months! Visit the artist’s youtube channel here.
How to Clean Artist Oil Brushes Using Baby Oil Part 1
During this video I share with you how I go about cleaning my oil painting brushes during painting and between colours – then again at the end of the painting session. Baby oil is a FANTASTIC way of cleaning your brushes and I hope you find this tutorial useful. Remember to SUBSCRIBE and give me a thumbs up! Visit the artist’s youtube channel here.?
How to Clean Artist Oil Brushes Using Baby Oil Part 2
In this second video I show you how to clean your container buckets and re-use the oil. – check out video one for how to clean your oil painting brushes. Visit the artist’s youtube channel here.
Review of “Pink Soap” for Cleaning Brushes
Pink Soap is an awesome product and the one I go to again and again for cleaning my oil brushes. This is a great video and review of this fantastic product. You can’t go wrong. Visit the artist’s youtube channel here.
After trying a variety of soaps/detergents it dawned on me (not to make a pun as you will see in a moment) that what we are trying to remove is an oily residue of linseed oil. Then realized there is a product that’s been advertised for years that is used to remove crude oil from wildlife w/o adversely effecting them: If it can remove crude oil, it should be able to handle linseed oil. What better to use on brushes that are composed of sable hair. (Yes, I know, some of my brushes are of sable hair.)
Dawn dishwashing soap.
I gave it a try and damn, this stuff is amazing. I put some of it UNDILUTED into a empty prescription bottle and dip the ends of the brushes in them. Rub it around for about 30 seconds and rinse them off.
After repeating the process 2 more times (even with the biggest and messiest of them) they are clean. If I’m not sure then I dip them one more time and rub it to see if there is any change to the color of the soap. If not then I’m done. Cap the prescription bottle and wait for the next use. I use to mush the brushes in the bottle of Dawn which made the liquid full of paint residue. But by dipping the ends and rubbing them in my fingers the remaining Dawn remains clean.
So, not only is it effective, it’s also cheap and non-toxic.
There’s another use I’ve made of empty prescription bottles: I use the caps to store leftover paints. After placing the paint in the caps I wrap them in some saran wrap and tamp the wrap so it’s pressed against the paint, removing as much of the air as possible.
Then I put the caps in the freezer. I’ve found, even after a few weeks that the paint is fully flexible.
Even after a few MONTHS I have taken the paint out of the freezer. A thin shell will have formed around the paint. After peeling this shell away the paint underneath is still fine to use.