R&F Handmade Paints

R&F Update: Partnerships for a New Era

I enjoy taking quick photos of interesting moments in production and from time to time I’ll share them on this blog.  Today, the Ultramarine Blue “froze” on the mill apron in an interesting way so I thought I would post a couple of shots.  If there is anything you’d like to see please comment and I will do my best to capture it for you.

(Within reason of course)

-Darin

Many of you know that we have larger size custom sticks that measure 3″ and 2½” in diameter. We have made quite a few of these over the years and it is always impressive to hold that much paint in your hand. The other day we had a request for an even bigger stick and actually a different shape as well. What we ended up with was an Iridescent Silver stick measuring 3″ x 3″ x 10″. That is the equivalent volume of 7.83 of our standard large sticks. It weighs in at approximately 4 pounds and should make a pretty big mark.

Over the last 10 years, artists have had to reconcile themselves to the fact that manganese blue, one of the most beautiful of all blues available to the painter, is no longer being made. The pigment was first developed in the 1930s and was last manufactured in the 1970s. R&F had enough stock to produce manganese blue encaustic until early this year. In that short 70 some years, the color was justly renowned for its unmatchably clear cyan undertone.

The reason its production was discontinued is economical. Other than its value as an artist pigment, the main commercial use was to color cement (esp. for swimming pools). With such a limited market, modern safety requirements regarding its barium content made the processing of it too expensive.

After many years of fruitless search for remaining supplies, R&F decided to mix its own version of the color. To match it exactly is impossible. A phenomenon called “metamerism” means that a color made or mixed with one set of chemicals (such as cobalt blue and titanium white) may match a color mixed with another set of chemicals (such as ultramarine blue, phthalo blue, and titanium white) – but only in the light under which it is mixed. If the color, say, is matched under fluorescent light, it will not match at all under daylight.

In the case of a transparent color, the match is even trickier. The undertone may match, but only at the expense of the top tone. In many of our attempts the top tone was too red, while the undertone was too green. Painstaking trial and error finally resulted in a mix that we feel is close to the original manganese blue, and even more important, a color that is gorgeous in its own right.

The best part is that we will now make this color not only as an encaustic but as a Pigment Stick too.

Darin recently put together a little video of the paintmaking going on in the production area.

Check it out.