Can You Combine Pigment Sticks With Tube Oil Paint?

Yes, in fact we recommend giving it a try. Our Pigment Sticks® offer a terrific tool for painting and "drawing" directly onto your support. Beyond this, as you play and push their limits, and combine them with items you may already have in your studio, you'll find out just how much you can do.

One way you can try this is by building up an abstract ground, or the general shapes, values, and contrast of a representational scene with a brush and tube oil paints. Once you have these forms established, apply Pigment Sticks® to build up layers and apply the "final touches". This could be the glimmering light in a plein-air scene, the heavier contrast of a still life, or visual textures easily achieved with our sticks.

Underpainting with tube oil paints.

Building up layers and texture with R&F Pigment Sticks®.

You can also integrate oil painting mediums traditionally made for tube oil paints. Oil painting mediums have long been used to alter the state of oil paint, such as transparency, consistency, drying time and so on. You can use any of these mediums, varnishes, solvents if you choose the same way you would with tube oil paints. To learn more about the mediums we produce, click here.