How do I look after brushes and art materials so they last?

Brushes are usually killed by two things: paint left to dry in the base of the bristles, and standing them point-down in a jar. Both are entirely avoidable and both happen in almost every beginner's setup.

Step by step

1. Never stand a brush on its tip.Even for a few minutes in water. It bends the hairs permanently at the point and the brush never recovers its shape. Lay them flat or use a holder that suspends them.
2. Wash right up to the ferrule.The metal collar. Paint that dries where the hairs enter it splays the brush outwards permanently, and that is where residue always accumulates.
3. Wash acrylic brushes immediately.Acrylic is a plastic once dry and does not dissolve. Keep them in water while working and clean them the moment you finish.
4. Wash watercolour brushes in cool water.Cool water and a gentle soap. Hot water can loosen the glue holding the hairs in the ferrule.
5. Reshape the point before drying.Squeeze the water out gently and draw the bristles back into their point with your fingers. A brush dried out of shape stays out of shape.
6. Dry them flat or hanging bristles down.Standing them upright in a jar to dry lets water run into the ferrule, which rots the glue and the handle over time.
7. Clean the caps on paint tubes.Wipe the thread before recapping. Dried paint in the thread eventually seals the cap permanently and forces you to cut the tube open.
8. Store paper flat and dry.Flat in a drawer or portfolio, out of sunlight. Damp foxes paper with brown spots and sunlight yellows it, both irreversibly.
9. Keep watercolour pans clean.Wipe the surrounding tray so colours do not contaminate each other, and let the pans dry with the lid open before closing the box.
10. Spray or fix charcoal and soft pastel.They smudge with any contact. Fixative, or a sheet of glassine over the drawing, before anything is stacked on it.
11. Keep everything out of direct sunlight.Pigments fade, paper yellows, and plastic handles and cases become brittle. A drawer or a closed box is enough.

Tips

• Never stand a brush on its bristles, not even briefly.
• Wash to the ferrule — that is where the damage starts.
• Wipe the thread of every paint tube before recapping.

Common mistakes

• Leaving brushes standing in the water jar — The bristles bend where they touch the bottom and take a permanent kink, and water wicks into the ferrule and loosens the glue holding the hairs.
• Letting acrylic dry in a brush — Acrylic cures into a plastic that no ordinary solvent removes, so the brush becomes stiff and unusable. Unlike watercolour, this cannot be washed out later.

If it doesn't work

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