Tutorial - Room for freshness

posted by Roman, Jarhead, kong

Hi there!

Something beautiful happened. 
Beside really wonderful weeks past with friends and the persons i love, the sun's powerful shine on my bald head, some great moments of breathing fresh air inside my lungs and even meeting an old silverback gorilla i did choose to clean up my workbench to have some room for freshness. I did a lot of things to create a place again i will spent much time in the next weeks. I know will take you on a trip on what i did to create this place again, show some materials and talk about my way of using brushes, some organisation about material blabla and finally unpacking of Robert's Captain Maulg which he sent me after he did choose this option to finally start a new period of life when it is done. I can't say much at this point, it just blew me away after unpacking and i am honoured to be able to help with my hands as good as i might could. So much for the moment - let's get it on with room for freshness...

Introduction
This article will be kind of weird for you, the reader, i guess. I would recommand you start with some music for your ears, that doesn't help at all but it sounds better than nothing. I was very busy the last weeks and i still have to be in future days, but i can promise you the hardest and greatest days for this year lay ahead before the Duke of Bavaria Event in some weeks. I am really looking forward to see great people again, share this wonderful time with the people i love, up in front my brother in paint'n'soul'n'brain Raffa, additional the prophet of brainwork excellence will be with us, Robert - for a couple of days... then the Maxican will join, i will do Workshop before all this starts and then ough! - more and more people i love to spent my time with will come together to meet until the Duke of Bavaria is over, Mati will be there, even Andrea comes from Italy and so many, many more i love to see again or for the first time but could not name them all here - just great days ahead to say it with less blablub. Room for freshness is needed, for sure because i want to pay my respect with the best qualified help i can offer to help Captain Maulg be finished to the right time - and a cleaned workbench is the minimum where this journey shall start. Room for Freshness, it was far away from that look the last couple of weeks where i worked and painted and really felt like a craftsman while my place was a mess of acrylic and oil colours, tons of garbage and dirt from basing and so on, i guess everyone knows what i mean, here is a little impression:

Raffa, the italian Stallion reworked his workplace some days ago and i have to thank him for this inspiration to get mine readied up again - many thanks for your guidance bro', but i don't know anybody who keeps his ground against this look ...

Brush-Talk
It was time to clean up the mess and bring back some organisation. Introducing i want to talk about brushes and the way i use brushes and what brushes i use and son on. I have to admit that i use a brush like a guitar and as far as i can imagine i would crush the guitar after the concert. Also when i am painting i am getting friend with my brush as he has always has a character that is there to find and explore, but i still treat them like a wildsow. This is not the way you should treat your brushes, please be aware of that, this is just the way i work and keeping your brushes clean and tidy is not the worst thing on earth. So it was up to me to tidy up my little brush box. First i put out this little box and start to clean all these brushes with some Airbrush cleaner and checked them for dead ones or ones that have seen their best days - they will wander the crossroads to my big brush graveyard which can tell stories. Impressions:

I am using every sort of brush. Big ones, small ones, alive ones, dead ones, cheap and expensive ones. I have 2~3 favourite brushes at once which i like to work mostly with, others are for special areas. I love to do the main painting with a Windsor&Newton Series 7 - long hair, that's what i mostly have in hand when painting. To "feel" the one and only favourite brush at the moment i did sand his wooden shaft to feel him better whilst searching for him and have a better grip on him while painting - this sounds really stupid, doesn't it? I do it my way, maybe it inspires others to do the same as it helps me it could help you too, blablubs :)

I recommand not using your favourite brush for everything. Take an old one for dirty work and the one you love for the work you love. There will be an article about how you greatly can keep your brushes clean from some of the other apes as i wasn't in the mood to tell you something i know but never have done. This is my way and i always need some painting time to find out what character a brush has and what i will do with him. Here is a view on four brushes i use the last weeks and the future weeks - the special ones at the moment - i told you i am a wildsow :)

As i was cleaning my brush box i did clean up the rest too. I just checked my mind of stuff i did not use very often in the last months and put them out, cleaned it from the main garbage stuff to have a better overview again. Room for Freshness.

Up ahead you can see the box closed and also see my wildsow-style attached in every place :)

Saying goodbye to stuff
In fact i also did choose some of my brushes to be done now. Old warriors they are, ready to have a rest in peace in the big dead brush place i got. It is just a a metal cup and i am working with this brush burial ground for about 5 years now. Only in an extrem moment of panic i have to disturbe their restfull peace and get them ready to serve again for a moment - these old warriors with so much stories to tell. Room for Freshness.

During my clean i also had to throw away some other stuff - plastic cans for example and tons of old toothpicks. Those plastic cans are those from the supermarket and i use them for mostly everything - quick storing, 2 component water, strange material, snow, leaves, dirtwater, white spirit for painting with oil and much more - sometimes you just got to throw them away and work with new ones. Room for Freshness.

Also i did check my colours - thinking about the last couple of months what colours i did not really used from my carrying case and put them to an extra place for the old colours i might use someday again. I also checked the colours of their amount left and wrote a little list of what i would need. Room for freshness.

I now did expand this colour preparation to my small collection of pigments, oil colours and special colours, like Tamyia Clear and Crackle Medium. Everything stuffed in a plastic box to be safe for transporting as i am doing a painting class a month.

Cleaning also means getting some new painting water, making room again from stuff your last adventures brought to your table and listening to a good song while using water and some soap to keep the table's surface clean. As far as i can remember i also used the vacuum cleaner here :D

This is what made me so speechless and made me clean and prepare my workbench for some great and hard days of work up ahead...

More photos of me unpacking this will soon arrive in the jungle as i am way too speechless at the moment - all hail to Robert's perseverance and visions, i feel very honoured my friend to help you as good as i can - soon he will be with us at the Ape gang massive bamboo castle and rock'n'roll is on - day and night and in between :)

I hope this little article inspires you to keep your place clean time by time - and as you can see even a wildsow can have fun during this...

Keep on happy painting!
Best Regards
Roman

PS: And some fine music for the moment: