People think the cleaning is over when the water runs clear. For me that is the first cleaning, the one you do because you have to, and it takes four minutes. The second one is the next morning, before I touch anything else, sitting on the stool with a jar of Marseille soap and shaping each brush back into its point with my fingers.

It is not really about the brushes. It is the only part of the day where I am not trying to make something. Twenty minutes of small repetitive motion, olive oil soap, the smell of it, and by the end my hands have stopped being nervous about the painting. If I skip it and go straight to the easel, I paint badly. Not always, but enough that I stopped testing it.

A filbert with a bent ferrule is a dead thing, by the way. I say that with love to the people who keep them for sentiment. Throw it out.

Now it is nearly midnight and I have nine brushes in the jar waiting for tomorrow, which is a good number. Ten means I was doing something with too many colours and should think about why.