I’ve done this demo a few times, and I’m always surprised by how different it turns out.

The R&F pigment sticks are so versatile, and easy to use. People get excited about different aspects of them, and that moves the demo an entirely different direction.

The oil sticks have a really nice  buttery consistency, quite  different from other brands I’ve used, and they also give you the high pigment load of really good quality oil paint.

You can use them exactly like oil paint, and a lot of people get interested in using them with the Schmincke and Gamblin mediums we supply, which they may not have been familiar with yet. Then the next time I do a demo  I start by talking about mediums and people are like, ‘Why are you telling us this? We want to draw directly with the pigment stick.’, so the demo heads off in that direction.

I really enjoy it because it’s also an opportunity for me to introduce people to other materials they may not have tried yet, like oil and acrylic primed linens, and Belle Arti gesso boards or Arches papers in different weights and textures.

Last week it was all about the capacity for spontaneous mark making that R&F pigment sticks give you. The participants loved how you can put down really long continuous line s, without having to reload the brush all the time, as well as  the infinite variation in mark that you get. They anticipated that the pigment sticks would expand their  own art practice, into working more freely en plein air, without any brushes or mediums at all. We made quite a mess, but it was a lot of fun.

Julia Gorman