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Studio Routines

Solvent can

The first thing I do is turn on my powerful little speaker and select a Pandora station.

Next comes the daily solvent straining routine. Paint particles have been settling to the bottom of the solvent can, so there usually is clear solvent on top. I'll carefully pour it into the red cup, hopefully leaving all the dregs behind.


Then I'll pour the sludge into the sludge cup.

Then clean the remainder out with a paper towel.

This "basket" is inserted into the solvent can.

Brushes that have been cleaned from the day before rest in the clear solvent and I'm ready to go!

By the end of a painting day, the solvent looks pretty murky. It will bear the predominant colors I've used throughout a painting session. Usually it becomes some kind of gray--but not always.

After the palette is cleaned, each brush is swished well in the solvent, bristles pinched in a paper towel, then an additional cleaning and conditioning with Jack's Studio Solv. It is amazing the additional paint this stuff will get out of the bristles!

This is pretty typical of the end of an afternoon of painting. I'll take a palette knife with a long blade--

--and clean off and discard most of the paint in the work area of the palette.

The glass scraper will get the rest.

Eventually the remaining blobs from which I work will harden and I'll scrape those off to and replace with fresh paint. The working area of the palette is pretty clean, however, and ready for the next day's work.
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