Brush care 101
-Wash your brush in lukewarm water once in a while with baby shampoo, brush cleaner or liquid dish soap.
-Reform the point after use. You can use a crease in your palm. Just set the brush in the crease, gently close your hand and then pull the brush out. Give the brush a gentle twist as you remove it from the crease in your hand to ensure your tip returns.
-Store your brush in the upright position (with bristles pointed at the ceiling). Additionally, store with the plastic tube (the one which came with the brush upon purchase) on.
-When using your brush, do not leave it in the water. If you want to rinse the brush, set the bristles in the water, give it a good shaking, remove the brush from the water, dab the side of the bristles on a napkin to dry it out (remember to give it a gentle twist as you pull and dab to ensure the point remains), then set the brush down, or move on to your next color.
-When loading the brush all you need is the bottom third of the brush dipped into the paint. There is no reason to cover all the bristles in paint.
-Use thinned paint. You just bough a water color brush. Acrylics mimic water color best if they are thinned down a bit. There a few methods to do this. A water palette (google it), or move some paint from the pot onto a palette of your choosing, I like the cheap white ones you can find at any craft store for a dollar. The circle shaped ones with all the small wells circling the edges. Once the paint is in the well, add a drop or two of water and mix it all up. When you dip your brush a third of the way in, the diffusion process takes over and the paint is sucked up into the belly. Hence, there is no reason to dip your entire brush bristles into the paint.
-Don't dry brush or stipple with your 1's and 0's. Use an old brush, a stippling brush or official dry brush for that.
-No "stabbing" actions with your 1's and 0's.
-Those are the basics I live by and I get a great life span out of my brushes. A few years for each. I have some brushes I have used for 5+ years. Granted, these are specialized detail brushes which don't see a whole lot of use. I tend to get a solid two years out of my "work horse" brushes. By which I mean my size 1's and 0's. However, this is also based on painting an average of about 4-6 hours per week.