Wear and tear on cosmetics brushes

[Kathy Marie]

> A few days ago I had a conversation with an art supply salesman about why
> I shouldn't try to use dried-up tubes of watercolor (couldn't I just peel
> back the tube and wet it with a brush?). He said one couldn't justify the
> wear and tear on a good brush in the process of wetting old pigments.
<snip>
> Perhaps it would be a good idea to buy a cheap brush or brushes to loosen
> up pan color, and save the expensive brushes for the job of application
> only.

That art supply salesman was doing his job--selling more art supplies. :-/

Watercolor remains soluble *forever*--it's the nature of the binder (mostly
gum arabic and some sort of sugar.) All you need to do is get the pigment
out of the tube somehow and wet it before use--I bop down to my "studio" and
dose my "palette" with water about a half hour before. Given a little time,
the paints soften nicely and don't wear out my good brushes. Incidentally,
the small white soy sauce dishes Pier 1 Imports sells make great color
containers--moisten the chips/chunks you dig out of the tubes and let them
dry. When dry in the dish they will adhere, and the dishes are stackable.

For more on this, see Michael Wilcox's _Artist's Guide to Selecting Colors_
ISBN 0958789185, it should be in your local library or Borders.

As for cosmetics brushes, my pressed powders always develop a "crust" from
the excessive oils in my skin. I just scrape it off to reveal fresh
product. You could do a little scraping on your hard eyeshadows to get a
loose powder easily picked up.

Kathy Marie
in Wisconsin...