Moon Shadows – A few more oil paint stick tips!

Moon Shadows

My last post talked about applying the oil paint stick to this art quilt. Today I’m going to give a couple more tips about this process.

Preventing oil paint from getting where you don’t want it to be:

I like to keep a shallow plastic container to rest my oil sticks in while in use. I place the business end into the bottom of the container. This prevents the bar from rolling around and getting paint on other things.

shallow plastic container

As mentioned in my last post, after removing the skin, I put the scrapings into a trash can right away to prevent them from falling onto the carpet (it’s happened) or getting flecks all over.

Protective gloves:

I try to use gloves when applying paint stick to keep my hands clean. I’m not always good about this, but it does help.

gloves

Storage of Paint Sticks:

Before storing the paint stick I wrap it in plastic wrap,

plastic wrap

zip lock bag

After wrapping them I place them in a zip lock plastic bag. This helps prevent excessive drying out.

Clean up brushes:

I use Murphy’s Oil Soap to clean up my brushes. I always keep a 50% water, 50% Murphy’s Oil Soap solution handy in a small plastic bottle. I squirt a bit in a coffee mug and place the brush in the solution for a couple hours.

clean up brushes

Then I wipe the brush clean with a soft dry cloth or paper towel. The amount in the coffee mug is just enough to cover the hairs on the brush. I don’t like to soak more of the brush because it degrades the ferrule area and the brush falls apart faster. It can also cause the wood in the brush to expand.

brush soaking

And that’s it for today. Next post will talk about Derwent Inktense Pencils, which I also used on this piece. 

Thanks for visiting my blog!