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Paints

How To Read Paint Labels
In: Paints

How To Read Paint Labels

That’s very important to know what you’re buying and some information about your paints is available on labels:

  • paint name
  • grade
  • pigment used
  • binder
  • lightfastness
  • transparency
  • safety note

Paint name

Although there are many common names for paints we used to see around, there is no standard on how to name a colour. The spectrum contains millions of colours and all they can be named differently. 

Some manufacturers use traditional and most common names, such as cadmium red medium, cobalt blue, ultramarine blue etc. These names stand for pigments used and it’s easy to understand what is inside the tube.

Some names can be unique due to marketing goals or multiple pigment used. For example, Australian Grey or Australian Leaf Light by Art Spectrum or Portland Grays by Gamblin or Raw Umber Leningrad by Nevskaya Palitra. 

Also, the same pigment treated differently can provide a wide verity of hues, shades and transparency level. One of champions in that is PY42 Iron Oxide Yellow ,which has about 100 different names.

Paint grade

Paint grade is also a very questionable category as there is no standards of marking paints student or artist grade. For RUSART, we split paints into 4 categories: children, student, artist and professional. Most manufactures offer 2 categories: student and artist grade.

The main difference in paint grading is pigment load, quality of pigments used as well as fillers and mediums added.

  1. Children grade. We have a special article about art supplies for children. Generally speaking, the main criterium here is safety. Pigments used here are non-toxic and must have certain certification and labelling. Normally we talk about watercolours here and they contain a lot of dextrin (sugar) and starch instead of more expensive components.
  2. Student grade. Safety is not the main criteria here. Usually these paints lower budget for everyday use and practice. Pigment load normally lays between 3 and 20%. All the rest are fillers and binders. Cobalts and cadmiums are normally hues here, which means not real. Although professional artists prefer to use higher quality brands, student paints are still very helpful for underpainting and sketching due to there lower price.
  3. Artist and professional grade. That’s the main target for professional artists. Binders and pigment load vary, but most paints still contain fillers. If earlier information on pigment load was available in safety data sheets, for now it’s hard to find real numbers. According to our experience, pigment load in artist grade paints is between 15-70%. We will talk about pigment load in a special article.

Pigment used

One of the most important information for colour choice. Paint tube will indicate colour index (CI) that stands for chemical characteristics of pigment used. CI will start with N or P. ’N’ stands for ‘Natural’ and ‘P’ stands for ‘Pigment’. Then a colour identification comes: 

  • Y – Yellow
  • W – White
  • B – Blue
  • Br – Brown
  • Bl – Black
  • R – Red
  • V – violet
  • G – green
  • O – Orange

Index doesn’t show exactly the colour or a colour wheel. For example, PR101 is rather red-brown than bright red or PY42 is ochre but still refers to yellow colours.

Then index itself comes. It’s just a number. You can check pigment index names and their technical characteristics here >>

Transparency

This normally has 3 categories: transparent, semi-transparent and opaque. Usually manufacturers include a symbol – a square. If the square is empty the paint is transparent, if it’s half-filled – semitransparent and if the square is black the paint refers to opaque category.

Lightfastness

Nowadays that term is getting replaced with weather resistance, meaning how much paint will change its colours with time under different conditions: exposure to light, UV, moisture, temperature etc.

Safety note

Working with some pigments may involve some risks. For example, cadmiums and cobalts are known to contribute into cancer development. Emerald green (PG21) is extremely toxic and poisonous. Once used as a rat poison and to preserve wood. It was called a trendy color that killed many in victorian society. 

Some other pigments, such as zinc white, can be harmful for environment and are not supposed to be disposed into water or soil. Paints intended for sale in the USA should have safety warning for such pigments. In Canada paints may or may not contain such warnings.

And some other things that you should keep in mind:

  1. Not all ingredients used in paints will be on the label
  2. Term ‘acrylic emulsion’ or ‘acrylic dispersion’ combines many chemical ingredients, including ammonia and solvents and these ingredients will not be listed separately
  3. Oil paints may contain lead or barium sulphate fillers that will not be shown on the labels either
  4. Manufacturing date is normally absent on paint labels

As you can see, labels can give a lot of information on what’s inside. However, some very important things can be still omitted.

RUSART Naturals Profesional watercolours
In: Manufacturing

What is special about RUSART Naturals handmade watercolours?

RUSART Naturals professional handmade watercolours are a result of years of research and development as well as continuous testing, formulas improvement and working with professional artists.

What is inside watercolours?

A full overview what watercolours are made with you can find in this article: Watercolours – What’s Inside? Let’s stop on the main ingredients that make watercolour genuine and quality.

Generally speaking any watercolour would have the following components:

  • pigments – to colour your artwork
  • binder – to glue pigment powder together and adhere the solution to your paper
  • fillers – to increase the visible volume of paint sold
  • plasticizer – to increase elasticity of a paint and film
  • humidifiers – to prevent paint from over-drying
  • preservatives – to prevent mold growth
  • additives to enhance colours or achieve any other specific goals.

The best paints have more pigment, right amount of binder, plasticizer, humidifiers, and preservatives. These ingredients are essential for any watercolours. Lower grade paints may look the same, but they will have more fillers, tints instead of pigments or low-quality pigments. More information about pigments you can also find in our Knowledge Base.

What is special about RUSART Naturals watercolours?

We released our first watercolours in Sep 2020. More colours are coming up as soon as testing process is finished. And for now we’re happy to offer our soft, semi-dry watercolours for professional artists.

  • High-quality pigments. Most pigments in RUSART watercolours are mineral, tested with time by generation of artists. With technical progress some pigments get replaced with synthetic ones (like it happened to ultramarine, for example) and we have them too. We’re also testing our own pigment manufacturing that coming up in 2022-2023.
  • We buy pigments from responsible vendors, so no children or unfair labour was involved. This ethical problem exists for some pigments sourced from Africa (mostly red and blue cadmiums) and China.
  • For our watercolour paints we use only natural ingredients: water, arabic gum, pure glycerin, natural BC honey and essential oils. No formaldehydes or other harsh chemicals.
  • RUSART watercolours have absolutely zero fillers. We’re not cheating our clients and don’t increase volume of paints to make you pay more fore the less amount of paints. Some paints look softer than expected as they require the amount of binder added and particles don’t bind together with less amount of binder. We didn’t add any fillers to make appearance better. Instead, we’re working on adding other pigments that help us achieve our goal. Every next batch will look better and better.
  • Maximum pigment volume concentration: 50-90%. Some pigments take more binder, while the others take less. We let pigment take as much binder as it needs for the best performance.
  • Our binder is also different. As we’re a small manufacturer we can control every little step. We create arabic gum varnish at certain temperature and certain conditions. Usually bigger manufacturers just dissolve gum arabic with water.

Other benefits of RUSART watercolours for artists

  • We make our paints in small batches, so you’re always buying fresh
  • Each RUSART Naturals watercolour jar contains 5ml of paints. Normal size of a full pan is 2.5 ml.
  • Our watercolours are portioned in convenient little pots with twist caps that keep watercolours moist and clean.
  • Made by an artist, Elena Nahum Leroy, for artists
  • Made in Canada, from mostly local raw materials. Buying from us, you’re supporting 10+ more Canadian small businesses. 
  • We’re working on reducing plastic in our packagings, as we did for many other our products.

 

water based paints and water soluble paints
In: Manufacturing

Why water-based paints are not water-based

Now we can see more and more labels saying “water-based paint” or “water-based varnish” or “water-based medium”. In fact, only few kinds of products can be truly called “water-based”. Let’s look inside “water based paints” meaning.

Why company use “water-based” for their labels?

All these comes from the times when acrylic paints started to appear on the art supplies market and when a massive campaign against oil painting began. Wherever possible acrylic paint advocates poured a bucket of dirt on oil painting manufactures claiming that oil paints are toxic, not safe, and acrylic paints are much better, because they are water-based. Then the market was roughly split into “toxic oil-based” products and “safe water-based” ones with the big lie started.

Now manufacturers have many reasons to call more and more products “water-based” because:

  • “water” means natural and “water-based” attracts customers
  • “water-based” is a clear statement and easy to understand
  • labelling paints as “water-based” is a simple way to stay apart from alcohol- and oil-based ones.

Water-based vs water-soluble paints

A true meaning of “water-base” is a mixture or solution of pigment, dye or tint in water. We use these fluids for tinting plaster, paper, gesso or primer and other mediums. You can find tints at our shop too.

Manufacturers also use pigments dissolved in water for fresco painting, where wall plaster serves as a binder. For any other cases we need a binder to “glue” pigment particles together and keep them attached to a support, such as paper, canvas, wood etc. Binder is a base for any paint. So, water based paint meaning is very narrow. And talking about “water-based” paints we should rather say “water soluble” paints.

Water soluble paints include a very wide range of products:

  • watercolours (based on Arabic gum)
  • acrylic paints (based on acrylic dispersion or emulsion )
  • Latex paints (based on acrylic resin)
  • Water-soluble ink (based on acrylic dispersion)
  • Gouache (based on Arabic gum or acrylic dispersion)
  • PVAc tempera paints (based on poly vinyl acetate)
  • Casein paints (based on casein and oil)
  • Finger paints (based on dextrin, starch and other sugar-glue binders)

As you see, a spectrum of “water-based” paints is very wide and it doesn’t always mean “water plus pigment only” pair.

Potential other ingredients for water-soluble paints

Depending on kind of paint and its intent to use paints will have some other components beyond just binder:

  • Fillers – to make a tube look bigger and replace expensive components like pigments
  • Enhancers – to make paints spread easier, enrich colours or achieve other properties, like opacity/transparency, increase viscosity, add gloss or matt finish, reduce or increase drying time and other
  • Preservatives – to prevent mold growing and extend shelf life
  • Humectants – to prevent paints from drying 

And here we can find some harmless components, such as honey, clays, marble dust, corn syrup, starches, dextrin, essential oils, resins, silica, glycerine etc. 

On top of those paints most likely will contain one or more of those: isopropyl alcohol, white spirits, solvents, ammonia, formalin, phthalates, xylene and other.

Always check list of ingredients, especially if work indoors. Manufacture safety data sheets do not disclose all information.

You can read more about different ingredients of paints and how they contribute into your art and your health in our knowledge base. And get updates to your email with our newsletter.

Non-toxic art supplies for children: safety
In: Manufacturing

Art Supplies for Children: Safety First

When we buy art supplies for children, the first thing we think about is safety. With this in mind we search for “nontoxic” labeled on art and craft supplies for children and easily find it! Let’s learn more what this label really means.

What “nontoxic art and craft supplies for children” mean?

All art supplies for children by retailers located in the USA and Canada must undergo through third party tested certification for toxicity. However, term “toxic” is limited by ingredients that cause “adverse chronic health effects” and “acute and/or chronic health hazard”. 

One of the most common organization that certifies products internationally is Art & Creative Materials Institute, Inc. (ACMI). Their certification split products into two categories:

  1. The AP (Approved Product) – art materials that are safe and that are certified by a medical expert to contain no materials in sufficient quantities to be toxic or injurious to people or to cause acute or chronic health problems..
  2. The CL (Cautionary Labeling) Seal – products that are certified to be properly labeled for any known health risks and with information on the safe and proper use of these materials. The CL seal is not allowed on any children’s materials.

Safety labels for art supplies ACMI

Everything sounds very good and if you look at AP label you can safely use it for children, of for yourself. We thought the same way before we realized some other things… We found AP label on paints (especially sets) containing cadmiums, cobalts, ammonia, formalin, ethylene glycol and other chemicals. If paints with some of these chemicals are to be sold in California, they may have special “warning” labelling. 

Where to find more information?

Normally, all art supplies should accompany with Manufacture’s Safety Data Sheets (MSDS), where composition and chemicals have to be disclosed. However, most manufacturers keep a list of ingredients secret and MSDS contain only general information, like “no hazard known”.  

For example, the biggest supplier of children art materials in North America, Crayola, doesn’t show ingredients at all. We even can’t tell what kind of pigments are there and what they use to prevent paints from growing mold. You can find MSDS here: https://www.crayola.ca/about-us/crayola-msds.aspx 

There are many reasons why manufacturers hide ingredients, from literally hiding something to just protecting themselves from competitors. RUSART finds this practice dishonest and as children may use paints and other supplies in many ways, including licking and painting on their skin, knowing a full list of components is very important.

Why knowing ingredients of paints IS important?

Nontoxic is not always nontoxic

First of all, term “toxic” is much broader than standards determine. Even ASTM D-4236, the standard practice of labeling art materials for chronic health hazards, is saying that “1.8 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety and health practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use.” 

That means, even if you see a label “conformed to ASTM D-4236”, you and yourself are in charge of use of the product. That’s your responsibility if something goes wrong.

Misuse can occur

Secondly, all art and craft paints are assumed to be used properly. So, paints – for painting on paper (or other listed support), pencils – for drawing and paper etc. But what if your child accidentally ingests paints? And that’s a very common paint “misuse”.

A lot of paints for children contain dextrin and corn starch as a filler, so paints may taste yummy for them to lick. As a white colour or as a filler companies use titanium or zinc oxides. Titanium oxide is quite safe chemical (read more in our knowledge base), but zinc oxide when ingested may cause some unwanted effects.

Cadmiums and cobalts usually are not an issue for kids paints for economical reasons. These pigments are so expensive, that manufactures would never use them for children.

Hidden chemicals

Another big issue is formalin, which is a very commonly used preservative in paints. In some countries, such as EU and Russia, it’s legally prohibited to use it in paint-manufacturing. But it’s not prohibited to sell paints containing formalin. That’s why, when you buy non-toxic paints from China, no one can guarantee they have no formalin. Similar issue you can find with phthalates.

Allergies

And, what’s very important, that’s even paints come out absolutely non-toxic, they still can cause allergies. And knowing a list of ingredients helps a lot. Paints for children may contain wheat, honey, and other allergens. These ingredients are essential for natural paints but should be avoided with those who has certain allergies.

Conclusion

  • Non-toxic label doesn’t guarantee that a products is really “non-toxic”
  • Check with MSDS
  • Choose art materials that disclose lists of ingredients
  • Stay informed with RUSART Newsletter
RUSART Naturals Profesional watercolours
In: Manufacturing

Can artist’s paints be natural?

Natural non-toxic watercolour paints DO EXIST and they can be professional and affordable. And we’ll try to prove it.

What is inside watercolours?

A full overview what watercolours are made with you can find in our other articles . Let’s stop on the main factors that make watercolour genuine and quality. Generally speaking any watercolour would have the following components:

  • pigments – to colour your artwork
  • binder – to glue pigment powder together and adhere the solution to your paper
  • fillers – to increase the visible volume of paint sold
  • plasticizer – to increase elasticity of a paint and film
  • humidifiers – to prevent paint from over-drying
  • preservatives – to prevent mold growth
  • additives to enhance colours or achieve any other specific goals.

The best paints have more pigment, right amount of binder, plasticizer, humidifiers and preservatives. These ingredients are essential for any watercolours. Lower grade paints may look the same, but they will have more fillers, tints instead of pigments or low-quality pigments. More information about pigments you can also find in our knowledge base.

The weakest colours belong to yellow segment and many manufactures to bring opacity and show colour in tube to catch buyer’s eyes add some white into a colour.

RUSART Naturals professional watercolours is a result of years of research and development as well as non-stop testing, formulas improvement and working with professional artists.

What is special about RUSART Naturals watercolours?

We released our first watercolours in Sep 2020. More colours are coming up as soon as testing process is finished. And for now we’re happy to offer our soft, semi-dry watercolours for professional artists.

  • High-quality pigments. Most pigments in RUSART watercolours are mineral, tested with time by generation of artists. With technical progress some pigments get replaced with synthetic ones (like it happened to ultramarine, for example) and we have them too. We’re also testing our own pigment manufacturing that coming up in 2022-2023.
  • We buy pigments from responsible vendors, so no children or unfair labour was involved. This ethical problem exists for some pigments sourced from Africa (mostly red and blue cadmiums) and China.
  • For our watercolour paints we use only natural ingredients: water, arabic gum, pure glycerin, natural BC honey and essential oils. No formaldehydes or other harsh chemicals.
  • RUSART watercolours have absolutely zero fillers. We’re not cheating our clients and don’t increase volume of paints to make you pay more fore the less amount of paints.
  • Maximum pigment volume concentration: 50-90%. Some pigments take more binder, while the others take less. Some let pigment take as much as it needs for the best performance.
  • Our binder is also different. As we’re a small manufacturer we can control every little step. We create arabic gum varnish at certain temperature and certain conditions. Usually bigger manufacturers just dissolve gum arabic with water.

Other benefits for artists

  • We make our paints in small batches, so you’re always buying fresh
  • Each RUSART Naturals watercolour jar contains 5ml of paints. Normal size of a full pan is 2.5 ml.
  • Our watercolours are portioned in convenient little pots with twist caps that keep watercolours moist and clean.
  • Made by an artist, Elena Nahum Leroy, for artists
  • Made in Canada, from mostly local raw materials. Buying from us, you’re supporting 10+ more Canadian small businesses. 
  • We’re working on reducing plastic in our packagings, as we did for many other our products.

5 ml glass jars

Check RUSART Naturals professional watercolours>> Prices start from $7.99 for 5 ml of semi-dry watercolours.

 

In: News

Rosa Gallery Oil Paints: Unique Paints from Ukraine

You can find Rosa Gallery oil paints in Canada at our RUSART shop only. Let’s see what’s interesting bout these paints and why you should take a look at them.

How Rosa paints were formulated

Rosa Gallery oil paints are quite a new product. When ROSA formulators were working on selection of colours and their performance, they decided to collaborate with professional artists. They were preparing samples of different colours with different pigment load and combination of pigments and gave them to artists for “blind testing”. Artist were choosing colours based on a better performance and other characteristics. And these choices formed ROSA Gallery palette.

Special Binder: Linseed Stand Oil

ROSA Gallery oils paints have linseed polymerized stand oil as a binder. Stand oil here is close to liquid honey by texture and colour. Benefits of stand oil is shorter drying time, thicker texture and higher viscosity. Once dry paints have moderate glossy finish. We see ROSA Gallery oil colours perfect for all prima techniques, when you paint and finish your painting within one round.

Read more about oil use in our other articles: How to choose linseed oil for painting?

Pigments Used

ROSA Gallery Paints contain both orga­nic and inorganic finely ground pigments. Combi­ning carefully selected pigments with polymerized linseed oil they obtain pure bright colour with natural look. Cobalts and Cadmiums here are hue. Rosa oil paints are manufactured in Ukraine. So, pigments there are different from what artists use in North America. That’s why ROSA Gallery oil paints can become a good complement to any modern artist’s palette.

Signature Colours

There are few special colours in ROSA Gallery palette that were formulated by artists from scratch. One of them is Flame Orange by Petro Bevza. This orange is so pure and so intense that makes it work perfectly for glazing and final touches.

Serhiy Savchenko is creator of another very beautiful colour – Azure Black. It makes very unique hues and shades. Definitely worth to try.

Based on different tests that RUSART team and supporters performed, we categorizes ROSA Gallery oil paints as artist grade. Just reminding that we have 4 categories:

  • Children (high-quality paints for young artists with no harsh chemicals)
  • Casual or Studio (budget student grade paints that a less expensive, but have lower performance or light fastness. These products can be interesting even for professional artists for underpainting, rough sketching etc.)
  • Fine or Artist (high-quality artists’ paints and other supplies for every-day painting)
  • Professional (top quality supplies that any professional artist can rely on)

Check Rosa Gallery Oil Paints >>

Buy watercolour pencils online in Canada
In: News

White Nights watercolour pencils

Artists White Nights watercolour pencils is a quite new product for Nevskaya Palitra. RUSART received this product in summer 2021 and we see them as a great additions to famous White Nights watercolours. Although a colour range here is quite limited, it covers most popular colours and tints.

Colours available for White Nights watercolour pencils:

  • №32 Purple Violet
  • №37 Hydrangea Blue
  • №02 Desert Yellow
  • №04 Lemon Yellow
  • №06 Chrome Yellow
  • №10 Tangerine
  • №40 Ultramarine
  • №42 Light Blue
  • №43 Ceruleam Blue
  • №46 Light Turquoise
  • №48 Blue Green
  • №50 Turquoise Blue
  • №52 Green Blue
  • №56 Light Green
  • №60 Moss Green
  • №64 Light flesh
  • №65 Burnt Ochre
  • №68 Burnt Sienna
  • №72 Brown Ochre
  • №80 Ash-Grey
  • №91 Light cold grey
  • №33 Violet
  • №01 White
  • №14 Vermilion
  • №16 Flesh-colour
  • №19 Red
  • №20 Rose
  • №23 Carmine
  • №29 Lilac
  • №98 Black

These artist grade watercolour pencils have vibrant colours, spread and blend easily.

Combine them with White Nights watercolours in pans or tubes for a better performance.

Choose your colours>>

PS. White Nights is sometimes misspelled as White Knights due to close pronunciation. White Nights stand for a summer time in St.Petersburg, when the sun never sets and all citizens there call this time “white nights”. Summer night life in St.Petersburg is as intense as during the day.

Metallic acrylic paints by RUSART Deco and Tempera PVAc paints
In: Paints

PVAc Tempera Paints for Artists: Use, Comparison to Acrylic and Benefits

Generally speaking, tempera is not just one kind of paints. “Tempera” is a term that describes many paints with pigments dispersed in an emulsion miscible with water. So, technically, acrylic, watercolours, gouache, PVAc paints are kinds of temperas. However, for some reason we use word “tempera” only for a certain kinds of paints.

Polyvinyl Acetate, or PVAc paints, actually, are ancestors of well-known and widely used in North America acrylic paints. “Ancestors” doesn’t mean that acrylic paints are better than PVAc tempera. But due to many factors tempera was replaced with acrylics.

PVAc paints vs. acrylic paints

  1. As any other kind of paints, PVAc tempera contains pigment powder and binder. Paints may and do contain other ingredients, such as fillers, additives, preservatives, colour enhancers etc., but let’s omit these components as they do not ermine the key characteristics of paints. As you can guess, tempera has polyvinyl acetate as a binder, while acrylic paints have acrylic dispersion, emulsion or resins inside.
  2. PVAc tempera usually much lower in VOC than acrylic.
  3. Normally, PVAc tempera has no ammonia vs. acrylic, where ammonia is used to increase adhesion and performance.
  4. Acrylic can be either opaque or transparent, while tempera is normally all opaque.
  5. They both can use water as a thinner
  6. Tempera works best of all on wood. Historically, egg-tempera was used in Olden Russia in painting icons. Of course, pigment blended with egg-yolk has a very short shelf life that makes it impossible in mass-production. PVAc tempera has the closest properties to original egg tempera. Check legendary Russian iconographer Andrey Rublev.
  7. Drying time for both acrylic and PVAc tempera is similar.
  8. They both change colour after drying, when water evaporates.
  9. Acrylic can dry matte, or gloss, or something in between. PVAc tempera is always matte.
  10. Although both acrylic and PVAc tempera form permanent film, acrylic has better permanence compared to tempera.
  11. Tempera’s binder goes inside the support leaving pigment “glued” to a surface. Acrylic paints form a film. That’s why sometimes acrylic is peeling off.
  12. Acrylic paints have much broader use: from canvas and paper to fabric and glass.  Tempera’s use is quite limited (see below).
  13. Both PVAc and acrylic paints form stable and water-resistant film after drying. However tempera is more vulnerable to moist and freezing temperatures, hence, do not use tempera for exterior art projects and finishing.

How to use PVAc tempera paints?

Use it as any other opaque water-based paint. Tempera works very well on any fibre or porous support, such as:

  • paper
  • cardboard
  • wood
  • canvas
  • drywall
  • plaster
  • plywood etc.

To thin just add some water. You can also use white glue as a medium. However, as white glue is actually white when wet and transparent once dry, it may be challenging to mix colours at first.

Once dries, tempera paints form permanent and water-resistant film. When watered-down, tempera gives beautiful washes just with water with endless possibilities for glazing techniques.

Full drying time depends on amount of water used, but is very similar to acrylic paints. While you paint, your work may look glossy because of the water used. But as soon as tempera dries the surface is absolutely matte.

For your creative projects feel free to add some acrylic or oil layers on top of tempera. After full drying, of course.

Cover your finished works with acrylic or oil-based varnish, but give them at least 48 hours before applying any finishing.

Check our selection of Professional PVAc Tempera Paints >>

 

Choose your perfect oil for painting
In: Paints

How to choose linseed oil for painting?

How to choose oil for painting is the most common question for artists, both beginners and professionals. Trying and choosing right materials determine how long your painting is going to “live” and your painting experience.

What artists are looking for in oil?

When I start talking about oil as a binder for arts, I’m getting many questions from why not to use cooking oil for painting to why oil costs so different in stores. That’s a very broad questions and I’ll give all the answers in this and other articles. But let’s begin with the beginning – what are we looking for in “ideal oil”. This concept will help us choose the best oil for painting.

What would be an “ideal” best oil for painting?

  1. Ideal oil should dry fast – you want to continue layering as soon as possible while your inspiration is still with you. You don’t want to wait for a week or longer
  2. Ideal oil should be thin – you’re using oil as a thinner for your paints. If you need to change oil texture in any other ways, there are other mediums for that.
  3. Perfect oil doesn’t yellow with time – you want to make sure that your work will remain as you painted as long as possible.
  4. The best oil for painting is not reversible – that means that after drying it’s stable and permanent and will not melt and turn back to a semi-liquid form under different temperature or humidity conditions.
  5. Ideal oil provides good adhesion – layers of paint should stick to canvas or other support and to previous layers without a risk of peeling off.
  6. Perfect oil for painting doesn’t form cracking – of course, you don’t want your painting to get cracklings. If you want this “antiqued look”, there are some special mediums for that.
  7. Ideal oil has matte finish – that’s not about tastes, that’s about practical aspect. Glossy finish is fine when you work in “alla prima” techniques, i.e. paint wet-on-wet with 1 single layer. In this case selection of mediums may be broader. However, if you work in multi-layering technique, only final layer should have gloss as glossy layers do not “glue” to each other. In other words, whatever we paint on top of glossy layer sooner or later will peel off. And “later” here is less than 5 years.
  8. Ideal oil doesn’t contain toxic chemicals – if you’re sensitive to solvents and other chemicals or work in a small space with poor ventilation, you may prefer a safer options.

We hope all these help you choose the best oil for painting. Of course, “ideal oil” doesn’t exist, but we can try to get closer to this ambitious goal.

Why refined, bleached and thickened linseed oil?

Why I chose linseed oil for painting you can read in our other articles. They explain benefits of each kinds of oil. Let’s assume that we’ve chosen linseed oil and let’s find out the processing methods that make the goals of “ideal oil” real.

  1. Drying time

    Initially, extracted oil has many components inside, from different acids and vitamins to proteins. All they are good for our health when consumed, but do not work well for painting. Some raw oil components make oil sticky, increase drying time and show low transparency. That’s why cooking oil doesn’t work for painting. It simply has a goal to provide our body with nutritions, which should be removed in painting purposes. So, the first thing to choose in oil for painting is the indication “refined”.

  2. Consistence

    Most oils that just extracted have thicker texture than desired for painting. That’s why oil needs to be refined.

  3. Yellowing / non-yellowing

    Most oils for painting have yellow colour and due to some acids that linseed oil contains this kind of oil yellows with time on your painting. That’s why bleaching is a necessary process, which can be done naturally or chemically.

  4.  Adhesion

    For a better adhesion linseed oil should be thickened. In can be done in different ways or their combinations. Normally, this includes temperature and air or vacuum conditions.

  5. Ideal oil is not reversible

    The best oil for painting should stay stable and permanent after drying, meaning the oil will not melt and turn back to a semi-liquid form under different temperature or humidity conditions.

  6. Matt finish and permanency

    Due to linseed oil key characteristics, if it’s not stand oil or if there are no resins added, linseed oil provides matte finish and non-reversible.

  7. Toxicity

    Refining, thickening and bleaching takes long time. And, of course, manufacturers want to speed up to gain greater profits. And there are many technical and chemical methods to do so. Some producers are “cheating” adding solvents or turpentine in oil to make it look more transparent and reduce drying time. However, some chemicals may cause headaches and other health issues for sensitive people. Also, turpentine and white spirits, for example, require a good ventilation to use.

How Elena’s Signature oil made?

Elena Nahum Leroy (Perelman), the only owner of RUSART, recreated naturally treated linseed oil recipes that artists were using in Russia throughout generations, until the new mass-production era began. Read what she’s saying about oils.

Elena used traditional recipes that artists were using for most precious works in Russia. Yes, it took almost a year to produce a batch, but it definitely worth it.

  1. Raw cold-pressed linseed oil was naturally refined 3-5 times with water to remove protein and slime. We have to say, it took 2-3 weeks depending on quality of initial oil. And we drained about 20% of oil by volume. It’s not because the oil was “bad”, it’s because the oil has tons of stuff good as food or for wood-working purposes, but not for painting.
  2. Then we slowly heated the oil for 15-20 hours to remove water residue, polymerize and thicken. It’s a very delicate process as if a temperature is too low nothing is going to happen, and if it’s too high, oil will boil and obtain amber colour.
  3. Then we filtered the oil  2-3 times to finish refining and remove residue of sediments.
  4. And the last step – we exposed the oil to the sun for 9-12 months for bleaching.

So, we used no harsh chemicals, just power or water and the sun. That is a traditional Russian recipe of oil preparation for painting used for hundreds years.

Buy Elena’s Signature Linseed Oil >>

gamblin oil paints buy online in QC
In: News

Artist oil paints by Gamblin at RUSART

Gamblin is a dedicated manufacturer of oil paints based in Portland, Oregon (USA). Their conservation colors have been used to restore some of the most revered oil paintings in the world – including a Van Eyck at the National Gallery in London – one of the earliest oil paintings ever made – as well as notable works by da Vinci, Van Gogh, and Monet.

In Gamblin paints the manufacturer uses different binders depending on colour and pigment used. What about pigment, the other crucial component of paints, they are always in search of better and innovative options available. Let’s look at pigments they use.

Yellow colours in Gamblin artist oil paints

Although, cadmium yellow is the most beneficial yellow due to its brilliancy and opacity, you can also consider the modern and more transparent yellows – hansa yellows. They are organic pigments that are semi-transparent and lightfast. Hansa yellows retain their intensity in tints and make beautiful glazes. Also, hansa  can boost cadmiums in mixes. Also, hansa yellows make more intense and cleaner secondaries, when mixed with other organic (modern) colors like Phthalo Blue or Green.

For glazing techniques Gamblin offers Indian yellow (hue). Its transparency and a glowing warm yellow bring some amber shine to your painting.

Orange colours in Gamblin artist oil paints

Even though all we know that yellow and red make orange, mono pigmented paint are always preferable over mixed colours, because one pigment means cleaner mixing and more predictable results. Here, you can find transparent orange colours, such as Mars Orange, for glazing techniques, as well as opaque strong orange, such as Cadmium Orange.

Red colours in Gamblin artist oil paints

When we talk about red colours, we usually mean cadmiums (opaque), napthol and perinone (semi-transparent), or quinacridones (transparent). Gamblin has them all.

One of the beautiful reds is also vermillion, which is mixture of sulfur and mercury. The resulting bright, opaque red was a marvel short of philosophy but a delight to painters for a thousand years. The earth red and vermillion colors were prepared by Robert Gamblin for a Smithsonian Institute research project and are NOT available from Gamblin Artists Colors, as well as Alizarine colours.

Violet colours in Gamblin artist oil paints

Violet pigment is very rare and expensive to find, thats why painters used to mix violet colours and as a result violet and purple shades faded with time. If you still prefer mixing over single-pigment colour, try Gamblin’s alizarin permanent for mixing with ultramarine blue. Or consider making violets with quinacridone or magenta, which will make a permanent purple.

Blues colours in Gamblin artist oil paints

Gamblin blue colours include the full range of blue shades and temperature: from indanthrone, cobalt, and phthalo blue  to ultramarine Blue and turquoise blue.

Greens colours in Gamblin artist oil paints

Green is a secondary colour and as well as for purple and orange. So, green can be made by mixing colours or by using mono-pigment colours. In Gamblin you can find both options and you can choose anything from transparent phthalo green and opaque cobalts.

Earthy colours in Gamblin artist oil paints

Earthy, or brown, colours are the oldest pigments that painters all over the world used for centuries. And there is a strong reason for that. Earth colours are quite easy to extract and they have the highest lightfastness.

The late 20th century has produced the first significant change in iron oxides with the invention of transparent Mars. These colors are made by hydrating earth colors, a process by which opaque colors are made transparent.

Black and grey colours in Gamblin artist oil paints

Artists are controversial about making greys. While some artists prefer to use black as is, the others think that greys made from black are lifeless, so they remove black colour their palettes.

While overusing black in a painting will make it look dirty, neutral greys made from black and white are the same as neutral greys made from exact complements. Greys made from complements are more lively because they are incomplete mixtures of one color next to another. So come back to black with Gamblin Chromatic Black, a neutral, tinting black made from complementary colors.

An interesting alternative to mixing with white, the Portland Greys quickly lower the intensity of a color without changing its Munsell value.

Black and grey colours in Gamblin artist oil paints

White colours are core in any artist palette. Between 1/2 and 3/4 of the paint on most oil paintings is white, so the white color holds most paintings together.

Gamblin Radiant White, the most buttery white, and Titanium White have the highest tinting strength. Excellent for direct painting styles, they make the brightest, most opaque tints.

The Flake White Replacement project evolved from a prominent artist’s request for Lead (Flake) White, which had been the only white pigment commonly available until titanium dioxide was produced in 1920. Not surprisingly, the artist wanted Flake White’s working properties without the lead. Challenged, Robert tested all the Flake White oil colors on the market and found tremendous differences among them.

Check our selection of Gamblin oil paints >>

Rosa Gallery Watercolours in Pans buy online in Canada
In: Paints

Rosa Watercolours in Pans and Tubes

ROSA watercolours available at RUSART for artists (Rosa Gallery) and for students (Rosa Studio).

Watercolor paints for artists

Rosa Gallery watercolours are quite famous for their quality and affordability, but they are not easy to find in Canada. RUSART bright this watercolours to Canada and offers full range of colours.

Rosa Gallery watercolours in pans are artist grade paints with high pigment load and lightfastness, nicely filled into full pans (2.5 ml) and thoughtfully packed in environmentally thoughtful tin boxes. All these makes your painting experience convenient, useful, practical and enjoyable. These watercolours are very comparable in quality to White Nights paints.

Cadmiums and cobalts are true and give very rich and vibrant colours. Even though cadmium have a reputation of opaque colours and work better for acrylic or oil paints, here these colours are rather bright than opaque and will become a great addition to your palette.

Pigments in Rosa Gallery paints are mineral (like cobalts or cadmiums) or synthetic (such phthalocyanine or hanza). As a binder ROSA uses natural gum arabic, famous for being the best watercolour binder for centuries. High pigment load creates nice and long spreading gradient when water added.

RUSART offers ROSA Gallery watercolours in pans in sets based on their purpose: Botanical (14 colours), Modern (21 colours) and Classic (28 colours). We also offer individual pans that are very convenient for replacing your some colours in your sets that you use most.

For those who prefers tubes we offer a full range of ROSA Gallery watercolours in individual tubes (no sets).

We have them in 3 kinds of sets: 14, 21 and 28 colours. Individual pans will be available in fall 2021.

Watercolor paints for students

ROSA Studio watercolours is a great choice for beginners. These paints have the same binder and the same pigments, but contain more fillers. You can buy sets of 16 colours from our web-site.

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