Olive oil for cleaning brushes?

[Debra Jones]

When I was a kid in school, I swear I remember them telling us to store cleaned brushes with some grade of motor oil dip to keep the edge from fraying. It was a very long time ago and my 15 year lay off left no clue as to why.

But I tried vegetable oils. I was leaving dirty brushes in a jar of Wesson oil until I had a chance to get to soap and water. It was working nicely. The brushes were not so dry and I seemed to be able to simply wipe paint out of them. Since I sort of forgot a few during a watercolor spurt, I found it does eventually turn to gum. Many of these brushes were left for dead. During this era, I did find one of my paintings was suffering from eternal drying. I think the lack of removing all the oil somehow really messed the drying time of my one and only important work.

I recently got the infamous Ugly Dog soap from studioproducts.com. It is made with linseed oil and resin that work like cream rinse on the bristles. It is really amazing. I have recycled over half of my dead brushes. I think it has a lot to do with the oils which break down the paint instead of eradicting, like solvents. I must say I feel a bit of an evangelical fervor about the stuff, so I will admit prejudice.
dj*