...almost everybody asks when they see my studio set up is, "What are all the nickels for?" If I am in a joking mood, I say that they are for my otherwise neglected 401k. But in reality, they are an integral part of my process. To get the clarity of color that realism demands, I assign a brush to each color of mixed paint. I break down colors into spectrums, ranges, or families you might say, mixing them up before I paint instead of continually mixing them on the pallet. Once I have a color range established (mixed), I assign a brush to each variant of that color. Sometimes these variants of color are very small, so when I paint on the painting, they get mixed with another color, but keep a supply of original color in their hosel (or inner core of brush strands). So I wipe them off with a rag to get rid of the mixed paint on the outside, and then return them to their assigned color. This can be problematic though when colors next to each other are so similar. So I have pieces of tape on the handle of each brush. They correspond with the tape on the nickels.
This means that a brush with tan masking tape is at least four steps away from the next tan masking taped brush, so hopefully the colors have changed enough in those steps to delineate which brush belongs to which color. Often I end up with many brushes in my non painting hand, so this is a quick way to get them back to their proper color. It is simply a way to avoid cleaning the individual brush with thinner after every few strokes, and keeps the studio free of OMS fumes. But the most important part is that by wiping the brush off after I use it and return it to its defined color, when I go to use it next, I know EXACTLY what color is going to come out of it when I add it to the painting, and free of thinner, how the paint will behave. It keeps the colors sharp when I want them to be and gives me confidence in each stroke to know how the color will mix with what is already on the painting. It is a little tedious, and a lot OCD, but it works, so I use it.
I hope that answers a question you may never have had, and thanks for reading this blog! -jb.
