Rublev Colours Artist Oils

The only truly traditional oil colors—made without additives

Rublev Colours are different from all other commercial oil colors.

One reason is we use natural and historical pigments like those used by the old masters. Another is we make them as they did before modern oil colors—without additives. We formulate Rublev Colours Artists Oils to maintain the unique characteristics of each pigment in oil. What you find in each tube is unique due to the pigment inside, giving you new choices of texture, opacity, consistency, tone, and hue. With Rublev Colours, you experience the transparency of yellow ocher, the pale coolness of green earths, and the crystalline glitter of blue lazurite.

Color Particle by Particle

The particles of natural pigments are larger and more varied than pigments in modern artists’ oil colors. When we remember how crystalline pigments, such as azurite, malachite, and lazurite, were used in old masters’ paintings, it is easy to understand how these beautiful surfaces with broken lights were obtained. An examination, for instance, of azurite particles under the microscope at once reveals the beautiful mass of blue and blue-green crystals, reflecting light in all directions and thus, of course, enhancing the visual effect.

No Additives

Rublev Colours Artists Oils do not contain additives, such as fillers, driers, and stabilizers—simply pigment and oil. We use linseed oil in our paint sometimes with a small amount of heat-bodied linseed oil. Stabilizers, such as stearates and waxes, that diminish the individual effects of pigments are not added. You will find different consistencies from color to color due to the characteristics of individual pigments. Some colors brush out long, others short and buttery, and most are thixotropic.

Overall, Rublev Colours Artists Oils have longer brushing consistency than most tube colors today, making them ideal for both bristle and soft-hair brushes in fine rendering on both fine-weave canvas and smooth panels.

Single Pigment Colors

When you see a color name on our label, you get just that—one pure pigment. For example, Rublev Colours Vermilion is not a hue but the pure pigment— red mercuric sulfide. In a tube of Rublev Colours Verona Green Earth, you will not find a mixture of pigments but the real thing—green earth. And Rublev Colours Naples Yellow is pure lead antimonate. You won’t even find the word “genuine” used to describe Rublev Colours because all colors are simply that—genuine. All our earth colors have outstanding lightfastness, and most of the other colors are permanent when used at full strength. Rublev Colours Artists Oils offer an extraordinary range of tinting strength and an immense diversity between opacity and transparency, as well as texture—from smooth, fine-grained to grainy.

Meticulously Crafted

We make Rublev Colours Artists Oils in small batches, meticulously crafting each color. Using natural mineral and historical pigments means we must take extra steps to prepare these colors into a useable paint, which is typically not required for modern synthetic pigments. All this requires more time and labor to make a finished product that is different from all other oil color brands.

Pure Pigment and Oil

While other brands of oil colors contain fillers, pigment stabilizers, and other additives, Rublev Colours Artists Oils are simply pigment and oil. Without these additives, you may find a little oil coming out of the tube. The separation of oil and pigment in artist-grade paint does not indicate poor quality; it often means that little or no additives were used. Separation commonly occurs as pigments aggregate and settle during storage, causing the oil to naturally separate from the pigment. Rublev Colours Artists Oils are aged up to six months to allow most separation to occur before packaging.

Oil Separation

Separation of pigment and oil may occur with Rublev Colours Artists Oils and is a natural process when stabilizers are not added to prevent this from occurring. If separation occurs, squeeze the amount of paint that you will use out of the tube onto plain white paper. Allow the paper to absorb the excess oil, scrape the paint off and transfer it to your painting palette.

Hint: We have found that storing tubes with the cap side down forces free oil to the tube end, thereby reducing the amount of oil that is squeezed out initially.

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