Use a large wall brush for painting walls, flat doors, and siding. With a good quality wall brush, you won’t need rollers—and you may even save on paint because brushes are more precise.
Proper Use Of Paint Brush
- Robust, hard brushes are ideal for pushing around thick paint, and for creating brush marks in the paint, such as when painting in oils using the impasto technique. How you use your brush will, in large part, determine how long it lasts. You want to use your brush for the purpose it was intended.
- Guess What You Can Do With These Brushes?! Learn how to use your brushes like a Professional Artist to achieve amazing detail in your paintings!
Haven't any of you had any professional training at all?
I don't want to steal your thunder Kelly, but this is not Best Practice.
Don't ever put paint thinner into plastic. It will melt most kinds. Why risk a mistake? Old glass salsa jars exist for brush cleaning. label one, put some glass marbles like the flower arranging ones into the bottom to work the brush against. (Plain, not coated with shiny stuff. It'll dissolve) Trying to clean oil based paints out of brushes by just stirring them around doesn't work. If you're desperate a crumpled piece of window screen will work too but it's hard on bristles so this is not a default. Paint thinner is very flammable and an ugly toxin so you want to keep it stingy and the stuff needs to go to Hazardous Waste Disposal. Wipe those brushes really well!
If you're doing fine arts painting go buy a proper brush cleaning pot. A big size one would be good for pro house painters. Solvent sits in it for weeks and it has a sieve to work the bristles over. Paint solids drop below it. The top keeps fumes in and evaporation almost nill over weeks. Minimal exposure, clean brushes. Now wash them! I wash up to thirty brushes a day in the studio; it's just doing the dishes.
Do NOT use a surfactant/ detergent 'soap'. Use a real soap, a chemically designated soap, with oil or fat in it. You can put it on a cellulose sponge and work the brushes across it to work up a lather, or just work them against your palm. If you use bar soap swipe the brushes across it. The soap cuts the oil, and the fat base conditions the bristles.If you wiped out the paint and rinsed in thinner properly there's very little to wash out. More like a post gym shower then wrestling gunk. You don't want paint in a sink drain or on the back patio. Rinse well. If you do this correctly you'll get to wear brushes out instead of throwing them away. And bristles are chosen for this exposure so they'll get better. It's just like washing your hair. Squeeze out the water and shape them, air dry.
This works for synthetic brushes too. Do not leave soap in the bristles as it will contaminate your paint next time and make a bad paint film. As for exotic paints like epoxy? Yes, use nitrile gloves and a respirator! Outside. But if the stuff is hydrocarbon based a fat soap should work too. Acetone on brushes will kill them fast, so make sure thats a really Best Practice. Again- a soap may work better. Most bristles need the conditioning.
If your brushes start to get that gunky icky feeling, soaking them in that inexpensive liquid oil soap from the grocery store (Also best for regular washing after painting) is like a spa treatment. Leave them in for two or three days. It's magic! Paint in the ferules is a ruined brush, but as regular maintenance this is amazing. I have ten year old mongoose thats still sweet. I also paint a lot.
Do not use soap on watercolor brushes. Just rinse.
This is the method professional painters use; It keeps solvent use to an absolute minimum. Reusing a cup or 12 ounces of thinner instead of blowing through gallons of it reduces exposure and that stuff has lead in it. Among other scary things. Don't use it on skin either. Paint'll fall of in 48 hours if soap or olive oil doesn't get rid of it.
Even if you use a thinner only system like the guys who paint cars using industrial paints, a cleaning pot will use less thinner and reduce your chemical exposure. They can be used in series. You can eyeball them at the big online art supply stores, and I shop at industrial supply so don't think they don't interchange. ;-D I'll try to post instructions for the homemade version.
Painting is pretty simple and for that reason many people never learn the proper technique for using a brush. Sure, you can get the paint onto the wall, but the proper technique will improve your results.
The basics of how and when to use a brush are covered here. We also have articles covering more advanced techniques. Get professional results, check out our tips from the pros.
The Basics of Painting with a Brush
First of all, you must use the proper type of brush for the paint. If you are painting with latex (water-based) paint, then you will need a synthetic bristle brush. If you use a natural bristle brush, it will absorb water, becoming bloated and floppy. If you are painting with oil based paint, then you can use either a synthetic or natural bristle brush, but natural bristles are preferred.
Before you start painting, dip your brush in water (for latex) or thinner (for oil) and then shake out any excess moisture. This helps to keep paint flowing from your brush.
Dip your brush only deep enough to cover one-third to one-half of the bristles with paint. Dipping deeper overloads the brush and yields sloppy results. Tap the brush against the can to shake off excess paint.
Paintbrushes are most often used for painting trim and cutting in precise edges. Rollers or sprayers are typically used for large areas. Of course, you can paint an entire wall with a brush, it just takes more time.
Hold the brush with your thumb on one side and your fingers on the other. Your fingers should be on the ferrule; the metal band that holds the bristles. Hold the brush lightly or your hand will become quickly fatigued. Angle your brush to about 45 degrees to the wall and press the bristles firmly enough so that they just begin to flex.
Paint in long, even strokes. Spread the paint, getting most of the paint out of the brush and then go back over the area to even out the coverage. With each new brush load, start at the wet edge and paint toward the dry. Go back over the area to fully blend your strokes.
Long straight strokes will yield neater results than painting in multiple directions. Also, don't keep going over the same paint for too long or it will begin to dry and the brush strokes won't have a chance to level out.
Read about the proper technique for using a paint roller.
Use Of Different Paint Brushes
Use Of Paint Brush