Hand Cramps After Painting? The Cheap Fix Painters Swear By

A painter who'd been at it for years posted in r/minipainting that their hand now locks up about twenty minutes into a session. The suspect was the pinch grip on a thin plastic handle, and maybe a bit of arthritis on top. The thread starter had already glued a model base to a wooden ball in the garage to see whether cupping it felt better.

That handle holds the model. The reply that got passed around was about the brush, and it came from a tattoo artist.

If your hand cramps or goes numb a short way into a painting session, whatever you paint, this is what the painters in that thread do about it.

Where the trick comes from

The commenter tattoos as well as paints, and the advice was to look up how a tattoo machine is wrapped and do the same to your brushes. The wrap is a self-adhering bandage, the stretchy kind that sticks to itself and nothing else. Wound round a thin handle, it builds up into a cushioned grip.

The first reply agreed: you can get the exact grip you want. Another painter answered with a brand and a photo. They wrap every brush with 3M Coban.

Coban is a first-aid wrap, and it comes in a single roll as Nexcare Coban wrap. A roll is a few dollars.

How to wrap a paint brush handle

Tear off a length, start where your fingers sit and wind it round the handle under a little tension. Keep going until it's as thick as you like. It grips itself, so there's no end to tape down.

The one warning in the thread is to stay off the metal. The reply that agreed with the tattooist adds that you shouldn't tape too close to the tip or water will get into it. Stop short of the metal collar that holds the bristles, and the brush rinses and dries the way it always did.

Someone asked how often you change the tape, and the answer was when it gets nasty, not every season for sure.

Close up from the side, Digby winds a plain tan stretchy bandage round a brush handle until it's fat, the roll at the edge of the frame and the metal collar and bristles left bare.

Does it actually help?

The painter who got the most out of it put it like this:

My hands used to go numb after about ten minutes of painting. Since discovering this tattoo gun wrap I can paint for hours. No bullshit.
u/BadMrFrostySC, in r/minipainting

The Coban painter says it helps with the cramping, and with leverage and control too. Somebody who'd been painting for decades had never thought of doing this.

In a later thread in the same place, a painter with carpal tunnel wraps brushes in elastic grip tape or an Ace-bandage sort of material for a wide, cushioned grip. Same idea.

One limit, and the thread starter is the example. The wrap goes on the brush, so it helps the hand that holds the brush. The cramp in the post came from squeezing the handle that holds the model.

What else the thread suggests

The wrap wasn't the only answer. The rest aren't ranked, and a few painters use more than one.

A fatter handle for the model. Egg-shaped ones came up more than once, with the Artis Opus egg named. One painter who'd had the same cramp went egg-shaped and also keeps an old sock rolled into a ball as a cushion, to stop squeezing so hard.
A 3D-printed handle. One painter printed a batch of a design found online.
Rubbery pencil grips pushed onto the brushes, from a painter who likes a chunkier handle. Cheap, and no wrapping.
Fingerless compression gloves, which helped one painter with this exact problem.
Loosen your grip. Two replies suspect the starter was simply holding on too tightly, and one adds hand stretches and a stress ball.
Water and breaks. The top reply asks whether the starter drinks enough water, and an illustrator by trade builds breaks into every session with a timer and stretches during them.

Why do my hands cramp when I paint?

One reply looks past the handle and the grip. Bigger handles, yes, but also talk to a doctor, because it can be a sign of a repetitive strain injury like tendonitis. That painter's doctor sent them to a massage therapist, and a few sessions plus stretching and rest cleared the pain. The bigger handles are what keep it from coming back.

Digby painting the little figure with a loose grip on the fat, bandage-wrapped brush handle, smiling, the figure nearly finished.

Start with the roll of Coban. Wrap the two brushes you reach for most, stop short of the metal, and give it one session before you spend money on handles. A cramp in the hand holding the model wants an egg-shaped handle instead, and one that hangs around after that is the thread's cue to see a doctor.