How do you organize paint supplies?
Asked by
Wine (
641
)
July 19th, 2014
I go back and forth between cities and currently just throw all my brushes, paints, palette, easel, & pencils into a paper bag. Any tips on how to organize all of this?
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4 Answers
What kind of paints are you talking about? Makes a difference.
Throw them in a nylon bag instead. It’s less likely to wear out at inopportune moments.
God, you’ll ruin your brushes that way. Do this:
1. Buy a case for all this stuff. Not the easel, and maybe not the palette; if you’re as messy as you say, you’re putting that away greasy, so have a supply of maybe six plastic grocery bags folded up inside another grocery bag, and keep these in your case, and always wrap the palette even if you scrape it first, and then put that WITH but not IN the case. Easel ditto:
WITH but not IN. But tie them together with bungees.
2. Always wash your brushes beautifully before you pack them. Use canola oil, which is bad for your health but perfect for dissolving paint. You don’t have to use soap and water, just squeeze canola oil through the brushes and squeeze it out till no color comes out on the paper towels which you must have several rolls of. Shop towels are great – they hold up better. Keep lots with your kit.
3. Then when the brushes are clean, roll them in shop towels or a piece of canvas so that the brush ends are protected from each other and from mashing and bending in transit.
The material you roll them in weighs almost nothing and keeps them straight.
4. Arrange (do not dump) in your beautiful case the paint tubes, the bottle of linseed oil, the bottle of turps, the rolled brushes, and all the paint tubes consolidated into a plastic grocery bag, and some rags if you use rags. This could be a fishing case but if it were me I would shop around for something really attractive that I would really enjoy packing things in and out of (for motivation). Not so big that you can continue to throw stuff in; it should be JUUUUUUST RIGHT, like the baby bear’s cereal bowl.
Tie a ribbon around your easel legs when it’s folded up, make the ribbon the same color as the case.
Now you have a kit and the pleasure of packing and unpacking. This pleasure is part of the job. You deserve it. Yay yay! Post some pix of your paintings.
Such a beautiful and inspiring answer @susanc xx
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