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I have a problem when painting, in that paint seems to siphon up into the ferrule of the brush (even if I only dip the tip of it into the paint). I was wondering if there was anything that could be done in relation to this - I had heard that this will reduce the lifespan of the brush (as the paint will dry up inside the ferrule and cause the hairs to lose their point).

It happens regardless of how careful you try to be. You can combat it by using brush soap regularly,it won't get all the paint out but it helps. I use it but I also use what I call the nuclear option! Revell Painta clean which works really well but really really stinks!

Yup, you can be careful, but eventually capillary action draws it up. Just clean your brush regularly and make sure to do a thorough clean after painting. Good brush soap will help a lot. All brushes wear out, though, and smaller brushes wear faster.

If I'm using one of my really good brushes that I want to last, I use 2 brushes to paint. One for mixing and thinning (a crap one) and the other just for painting (the good one).

Make sure the good brush isn't soaked in water when you go to dip it in to the paint. So when you occasionally have to rinse off the good brush, don't dip it straight back in to the paint but wipe off the excess moisture on a tissue first. That keeps the body of the brush drier and stops paint wicking up it.

So basically keep the brush (relatively) dry and the paint wet (using a crappy brush you don't care about).

That's what I do with my fine detail brushes and it mostly seems to work. Occasionally paint will still get up there, but it happens less often, for example the other night I painted for about 1.5 hours with my Raphael 8404 4/0 and didn't get paint in the ferrule until right at the end (basically when I got lazy and overthinned the last of the paint on my palette instead of just mixing up some more).

But if you're doing glazing or washing or techniques that use super-thin paint, the paint is going to be so thin that wicking up the brush is inevitable, so for those jobs I don't use my *best* brushes, but just some cheaper kolinsky brushes. A few companies make cheaper kolinsky brushes (I assume made for the arse hair rather than the tail hair that the expensive ones come from) that are better than synthetics but cheap enough that I don't care if I get paint up in the ferrule (though I still wash it out with soap and water as best I can).

He basically covered it all but I'll just add, I always keep a cheap synthetic brush with plastic handle in my water for pulling out paint or mixing/stirring. That way my good brushes don't take the extra abuse and regardless of whatever brush I'm painting with the amount of paint I pull from the pot (with the synthetic brush) remains consistent.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
If I'm using one of my really good brushes that I want to last, I use 2 brushes to paint. One for mixing and thinning (a crap one) and the other just for painting (the good one).

Make sure the good brush isn't soaked in water when you go to dip it in to the paint. So when you occasionally have to rinse off the good brush, don't dip it straight back in to the paint but wipe off the excess moisture on a tissue first. That keeps the body of the brush drier and stops paint wicking up it.

So basically keep the brush (relatively) dry and the paint wet (using a crappy brush you don't care about).

That's what I do with my fine detail brushes and it mostly seems to work. Occasionally paint will still get up there, but it happens less often, for example the other night I painted for about 1.5 hours with my Raphael 8404 4/0 and didn't get paint in the ferrule until right at the end (basically when I got lazy and overthinned the last of the paint on my palette instead of just mixing up some more).

But if you're doing glazing or washing or techniques that use super-thin paint, the paint is going to be so thin that wicking up the brush is inevitable, so for those jobs I don't use my *best* brushes, but just some cheaper kolinsky brushes. A few companies make cheaper kolinsky brushes (I assume made for the arse hair rather than the tail hair that the expensive ones come from) that are better than synthetics but cheap enough that I don't care if I get paint up in the ferrule (though I still wash it out with soap and water as best I can).

Bolded for emphasis! AllSeeingSkink is right - I have found the main culprit for paint getting into the ferrule isn't so much overzealously globbing on paint, but rather the water. I noticed this when I started trying to really do the wet blending technique, because it was hard to control the paint. You want your paints thin, but not too thin. It's a bit of a balancing act, really.

Also, Windsor & Newton makes a great brush restorer and cleaner that will help you keep/get paint out of the ferrule. Follow the instructions carefully however, and don't use it in plastic; the plastic will melt. I have a small glass container I use, that works fine.

Brush soap is always a must but I find if I need to really clean the brush, soaking them a bit in the brush restorer first, really really helps.

Cosign the windsor and newton brush cleaner/restorer. As soon as I'm done with my painting session I will thoroughly wash the brushes with the soap, then a bit of soap to reshape the bristles to a fine point then make sure when you leave them to dry they are standing up and its also good to slide the plastic sleeve that came with them back on.

I would say maybe after 10 painting sessions or so I will put some of the brush soap mixed with distilled water in a mason jar, then rig a pencil or something similar accross the top of the jar, then affix my brushes with tape or something so the tips drop into the water but dont touch the bottom of the glass mason jar, letting them stay like that overnight.