I have finished the underpainting on my wife's painting. I tried cleaning my brushes differently last night instead of using a lot of turps I took a rag and wiped off all of my excess oils. Next I took some linseed oil and placed it on the hairs of my brush. this helped to get the rest of the pigment out of the brush hairs. then I did a quick dip in turps to get the oil out of the hairs so they would not harden up on me. finally I took the brush and conditioned it with a brush cleaning soap that can be purchased in most art supply stores. I will have to get the name of it and post it later.

I liked this process as I did not have the turps open that long and have to work it too much into my brushes causing them to fall apart quicker.

I am switching back to my 10x10 2ply glass pallete as I am not that happy with the throwaway pallets that I have been using. I will have to start storing my paint a little differently as I tend to mix a lot of paint and then it hardens up on me.

I am about to start putting color into my wifes painting after giving it a day or two to oxidize. I put a little too much fat into my lean so I will have to work around that as to not have the picture crack later on.

I will post in a couple of days when I have a little more info on the painting.
Roger/Webmaster
http://www.oilstrokes.com
http://www.thewhitewidow.com