First, gently wipe as much paint off of the brush with a smooth microfiber cloth. Using as little water as possible with a squeeze bottle and lukewarm water - never hot or cold - rinse the brush over a bucket to remove more paint. Squeeze the water out of the hairs, ferrule to tip. Try your best to never allow paint or water settle into the ferrule. Not an easy thing to do but with mindful practice your handling of the brush will get better.
Repeat if necessary.
You will be able to remove the majority of the paint this way. A slightly dirty brush will not make a difference to the clarity of your color unless of course, you are painting with white.
Fully wash the brush over the bucket with the same method as rinsing, using olive oil soap or any vegetable-based soap without added fragrance; these are best for your brushes as they condition the hairs. I recommend using an appropriate size lid or plate for the brush size, lathering the soap without mashing the hairs, using as little water as possible.
Rinse the brush and soap lid into the bucket, using as little water as possible.
Never leave your brush soaking in water.
Dry your brush by dabbing it with a second, clean micro-fiber cloth. Air-dry the brush by hanging it from the handle, hair side down. Do not force the drying of the brush, or your paintings by the way.
Using this method you’ll end up with very little water in your bucket. Pour off that water into a smaller glass container. With a small silicone spatula, scrape out all the remnants as if you’re salvaging the last of the ice cream. Let this dirty water sit for at least 24 hours undisturbed, don’t even let it sit by the window which rattles with a passing subway. Later, pour off as much of the water which has separated from the sludge into your wash bucket. You can reuse this water for washing more brushes that day and even use it to paint with. Again, you might not want to use this wash water if you are painting with white. Or if you just want the cleanest recycled water possible, run it through a carbon water filter. Let the sludge dry out in the sun and you’ll end up with a unique brown, gray, or black pigment. A well-known paint company calls this pigment, Torrit Grey.
You can dump the wash water into your local soil if you did not use soap.
Some of the surfactants in the soap will remain in the water or the pigment sludge. My aging paint tests do not show any sign of a weakening paint film. Further analysis is necessary to determine whether the small amount of vegetable soap is harmful to the soil. For extra precaution, dump the water into cat litter and dump it with landfill waste.
Lastly, do not use paper towels or similar instead of a microfiber cloth. Reuse the microfiber cloths until they are exhaustingly dirty and cannot absorb any more paint. Do not wash. Throw the cloth away in landfill waste once it is dry.
Excerpt from Roger Danilo Carmona's project at The Urban Soil Institute. View the work and residency project below.
