Page 7 - Artist Materials Advisor

As a realist painter of long-standing, I’m very happy to now be able to add Mars Brown, Transparent Red Iron Oxide, Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide, and Chromium Oxide Green from Rublev Colours to my Number One Paintbox and my palette. My preference is for oil paints with no stabilizers in them, just linseed oil and pigment, and I know of no other brand that meets those criteria. As Natural Pigments adds more of the colors I need to their Rublev Colours line of oil paints, I will retire those colors I have from other brands and replace them with Rublev Colours...

When making paint, we sometimes encounter surprises. Some are disappointing. Others offer exciting possibilities. This is the latter. Recently a large shipment of lead white pigment arrived at Natural Pigments. We inspected the pigment and accompanying documentation and placed the entire lot in production. That evening production prepared a small batch of lead white number two—our lead white ground in walnut oil. However, the pigment’s color was not white when ground in oil; it was very pale pink...

When purchasing supplies for the winter, I decided to try Rublev Colours’ Zorn Palette, which is composed of only four colors: Lead White, Yellow Ocher, Vermillion, and Bone Black. Named after the Swedish alla prima virtuoso Anders Zorn, this simple selection of colors yields a surprising variety of tones, making it a versatile and practical choice for painters who study from life. This article provides recommendations on using the Zorn palette in painting to work simply within its limitations...

The age-old advice to wait at least six months before varnishing oil paintings is a good practice but one that many artists resist. And it is understandable why because when a painting is completed, it often needs to be delivered immediately for exhibit or into the customer’s hands. This article reviews the reasons for this advice and determines whether this is true or not...

With the recent surge in popularity of painting on metal, such as aluminum composite material (ACM) and copper, some have questioned its viability regarding the thermal expansion of the metal. When an object is heated or cooled, its length changes by an amount proportional to the original length and the temperature change. This is known as “linear thermal expansion,” or the change in the length of a material...

White pigments consist of natural or synthetic inorganic pigments. Inorganic pigments are easier to disperse in most paint vehicles than organic pigments. Nevertheless, many white pigments undergo treatment to improve their dispersibility, lightfastness, and weather resistance.  White pigments are used for white colors, tinting colors, and covering tones in paint...

The first project of the newly formed Inter-Society Color Council (ISCC) Project Committee on Artists' Materials was “a study of the pigments used in the manufacture of artists' paints as well as the labeling practices used by these manufacturers.” The committee membership and the American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) D01.57 subcommittee were virtually identical. It was composed of artists, conservators, analytical chemists and color scientists, and artists' paint manufacturers and their chemists...

Search the words ‘Zorn Palette’ in Google, and you will find over 604,000 entries. Each discusses the famous four-color palette of Anders Zorn, a Swedish painter adored by thousands worldwide and long hailed as the artist’s artist. Among the many entries in Google are those expressing disbelief about the claim he only had four colors on his palette...

Drawing has always been my primary means of expression. It has been both a meditation and an obsession since I was a boy. I always say my favorite drawing tool is a 2HB Dixon Ticonderoga pencil. But ever since I saw Leonardo da Vinci's Studies of a Horse and Bust of a Warrior, I knew that I had to explore the metalpoint medium...

This is a revised table initially published in 2007 with current information on commercial oil colors as of November 1, 2019. The information in this table is compiled from public sources, such as manufacturers’ literature, product labels, and distributors’ websites. The information is subject to change. Please consult with the manufacturer for the latest pigment content of their paint...