Plansky, who had also worked at Torch and was
now beginning his own company, Williamsburg Oil
Paints. It was at Carl’s suggestion two years later
that I developed a version of oil sticks, which I called
Pigment Sticks®.
Because of its wax and oil composition, an oil
stick was a natural step from encaustic. But where
encaustic required tools and process, Pigment
Sticks® were intended to have the immediacy of
applying the paint directly from the hand. They were
to be as far from a crayon and as close to the soft
creamy lusciousness of an oil paint as possible,
different from encaustic, but workable with it. Bill
Creevy, in his 1994 The Oil Paint Book, called them
“an oil painter’s dream come true.” [5]
It wasn’t easy to achieve that goal, however. The
formulations were very tricky. Each color required
a different balance of oils, waxes, and pigment.
Opaque colors had to be bright and solid, while
translucent colors had to have just the right interplay
of top tones and undertones in a spontaneous
stroke.
The two wax-based paints did well enough to
require a move upstate to a larger space in the
Mid-Hudson Valley. Over the years the molds and
mixers cobbled together from kitchen and plumbing
appliances gave way to professional molds and
machinery and traditional paint-making methods.
The color line has increased from 42 to 99 colors.
But the batches of paint have remained small and
carefully controlled to ensure the highest purity and
quality.
BUILDING A COMPANY (AND A MARKET)
Creating a great paint is one thing; that’s the craft
part. Getting that paint into the hands of artists is a
totally other thing; that’s the business part. [8]
The increased interest in encaustic in the early
1980s was promising, but it did not represent
some sudden overwhelming demand. Oil sticks
were fairly understandable, but encaustic was still
considered an exotic medium. Most art stores
were reluctant to make the investment to carry it.
Galleries were skeptical. Schools barely recognized
it. If it was taught in the schools at all, it was
usually only in materials classes as part of a survey
of historical mediums. Even artists working in
the medium, myself included, had only a limited
understanding of the materials, the techniques, or,
most importantly, the tremendous possibilities of
how this incredibly versatile paint could be used.
The key to developing a market was education and
promotion.
Torch Paints.
Encaustic Paints.
Original Pigment Stick.
R&F Paints
Portfolio
In 1995 R&F started holding the first ever regularly
scheduled year-around encaustic workshops.
Later that year we also set up the Gallery at R&F to
promote the artists working in both encaustic and
oil sticks through a rotating exhibition schedule.
The workshops immediately filled with artists
from all around the US. The initial classes were
three days long and were based on the painting
knowledge of the individual teachers. [9] As the
Pigment Sticks.
7
Summer
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