Artist Review of R&F Pigment Stick in Olive Yellow III

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R&F Pigment Sticks are highly pigmented bars of oil colour, handcrafted in small batches with the purest traditional paintmaking ingredients. The stick format allows artists to paint directly onto the canvas without a brush, making them versatile, easy to transport, and perfect for expressive mark-making. In this article, Sheila Dodd shares her excitement about the portability and the vibrancy of colour of the R&F Pigment Stick in Olive Yellow III, and how this format of oil paint gives her the freedom to easily travel with her paints.

R&F Pigment Stick (Oil Paint Bar) 38 ml Olive Yellow III (213H)

Artist Review of R&F Pigment Stick in Olive Yellow III

by Sheila Dodd

As a painter, excited to travel to the foothills of Mont Ventoux with an international group of plein air painters, one of my first thoughts was which oil painting materials would be safe and compact enough to capture the sunlit landscapes and still lifes in the markets of Provence. Just as important was making sure everything could fit safely into my cabin baggage, especially after having expensive pigments confiscated on previous trips through airport security!

Jackson’s website stocks the relatively new (to me anyway) R&F Pigment Sticks. Olive Yellow III looked like sunshine in a stick! It has a tendency to take on a slight greenish hue depending on the colours alongside. From the seductive colour chart, I ordered four pigment sticks. Although fairly expensive, 38 ml is fairly long-lasting and good value for money.

A small, strong cardboard box was delivered the following day, containing my carefully packed order. The pigment sticks were each individually wrapped in sustainable, 100% compostable cellophane packaging.

R&F Pigment Sticks are handmade in the USA in small batches and composed of natural beeswax, linseed oil, and pure pigment. Minimal addition of wax plant fillers ensures a soft, workable consistency, resulting in a greater paint film strength. A separate Blending Stick is also available, useful for both adjusting opacity and blending/glazing.

Once opened, scraping a thin layer of covering pigment from the stick, it is advisable to store the raw stick in greaseproof paper to avoid drying and colour saturation into adjoining pigments.

R&F Pigment Sticks can also be used alongside conventional oil paint and thinned with Sansodor or turpentine. This really appeals to me, as my practice involves using the sticks to draw structure into looser, traditional oil works, adding another dimension of detail. Hoping not to ‘float around in seas of oil paint’ in an effort to find or keep form when overpainting reaches the point of pushing work over the edge to destruction!

R&F Pigment Sticks have a similar drying time to oil paint. Some pigments dry faster than others. Importantly, these pigments completely ‘cure’ or dry, unlike oil pastels, which never dry completely and often need to be displayed under glass for exhibition purposes. Some of my larger works focus on adding painted script, eg, words from the line of a poem.

These Pigment Sticks are perfect for the addition of mark-making or fine lines. In stick form, there is no need to have a handful of messy paint brushes when working plein air, and best of all, no cleaning of brushes, unless of course amalgamating with tube oils. Colour can be lifted or deliberately smudged by wiping with a clean rag, a finger, or a brush.

It is possible to use them lightly or work into heavier impasto, which dries with a slight sheen. R&F Pigment Sticks work just as well on canvas or wood, although I would recommend a coat of white gesso on paper, as with conventional oils.

R&F Pigment Sticks (38 ml) are quite large compared to R&F Drawing Oils, which come in a smaller 12 ml size and are more affordable. While the colours are beautifully subtle, oil pastels offer a wider range of colour varieties.

Artists’ Colourmen Sennelier, also stocked by Jackson’s, offer competitively priced Oil Sticks in 38 ml, which are another great option for painters.

Some of the artist sets from both R&F and Sennelier may include colours that aren’t quite right for your work. Buying one or two sticks at a time is a great way to experiment! Each brand has slightly different textures, so it’s worth having fun with mark-making and self-expression as you discover your favourites.

About Sheila Dodd

Sheila Dodd is an artist primarily working on the coasts of Northumberland and the villages of Southern France. She holds a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts and studied at The Slade Summer School, UCL, and St Ives School of Painting. Her painting subjects and interests include landscape, still life, and life drawing, and she has exhibited internationally in the UK and France.