Oregon-based specialist supplier of historical pigments, oils, mediums, and grounds for traditional painting techniques, serving professional artists and conservators since 1999.
Natural Pigments is the most comprehensive source of historical pigments, traditional oils, mediums, and grounds for painters who want to work with the same materials used by the old masters. Founded in 1999 and operating from California, the company has spent over two decades building a catalogue of materials that is unmatched anywhere in the world for its depth, authenticity, and technical documentation. For painters who work in traditional techniques, for conservators who need historically accurate materials, and for any artist who wants to understand how the great European paintings were actually made, Natural Pigments is an essential resource.
The company produces and sells materials under its own Rublev Colours brand, named after the fifteenth-century Russian icon painter Andrei Rublev. The Rublev Colours range covers dry pigments, oil paints, watercolours, and a comprehensive selection of oils, mediums, varnishes, and grounds, all formulated to historical specifications and documented with the kind of technical detail that professional painters and conservators require.
The heart of Natural Pigments' offering is its extraordinary range of dry pigments, which covers both historical pigments that are difficult or impossible to find elsewhere and the full range of modern synthetic pigments used in professional painting. The historical pigments include materials like lead white, genuine ultramarine from lapis lazuli, malachite, azurite, vermilion, and a range of earth pigments sourced from specific geological deposits around the world.
Lead white deserves special mention because it is one of the most historically significant and technically superior white pigments for oil painting, yet it is unavailable from most commercial suppliers due to its toxicity. Natural Pigments sells lead white with appropriate safety documentation, serving professional painters and conservators who understand the material's properties and can handle it safely. The difference between lead white and titanium white in oil painting is significant: lead white dries more quickly, has a warmer tone, and creates a more flexible paint film that is less prone to cracking over time.
Genuine ultramarine from lapis lazuli is another material that Natural Pigments sources and sells that is essentially unavailable elsewhere at the professional level. The synthetic ultramarine that replaced lapis lazuli in the nineteenth century is a good pigment, but it has different optical properties from the genuine mineral. For painters working in historical techniques or for conservators matching colours in old paintings, genuine lapis lazuli ultramarine is irreplaceable.
The earth pigment range covers ochres, siennas, umbers, and other iron oxide pigments sourced from specific deposits in France, Italy, Cyprus, and other locations known for producing pigments with distinctive colour characteristics. These location-specific earth pigments have subtly different colours and handling properties from the generic earth pigments available through standard art supply channels, and painters who work extensively with earth colours find that the differences are meaningful.
Natural Pigments' range of drying oils is the most comprehensive available anywhere. Beyond the standard linseed oil, the company offers sun-thickened linseed oil, stand oil, cold-pressed linseed oil, alkali-refined linseed oil, walnut oil, poppy oil, and a range of specialty oils including safflower, hemp, and perilla oils. Each oil has different drying characteristics, yellowing tendencies, and handling properties, and the company's technical documentation explains these differences in detail.
The mediums range covers traditional recipes including Maroger medium, Venice turpentine, damar varnish, mastic varnish, and a range of modern mediums formulated to historical specifications. The company also sells beeswax, carnauba wax, and other materials for encaustic painting, and a comprehensive range of materials for egg tempera, including genuine egg tempera medium and the pigments traditionally used in tempera painting.
Natural Pigments produces traditional grounds for oil painting, including lead white oil grounds, chalk grounds (gesso), and a range of specialty grounds for different painting techniques. The chalk grounds are formulated to historical specifications, using rabbit skin glue as the binder and calcium carbonate as the filler, producing a surface with the absorbency and tooth that traditional oil painting techniques require.
The company also sells rabbit skin glue, hide glue, and other traditional sizing materials for preparing canvas and panel supports, along with technical guidance on how to use these materials correctly. For painters who want to prepare their own supports using traditional methods, Natural Pigments provides everything needed along with detailed instructions.
One of the most valuable aspects of Natural Pigments is the quality of its technical documentation. The company's website includes an extensive library of articles covering the history and properties of specific pigments, the chemistry of drying oils, traditional painting techniques, and the practical aspects of working with historical materials. These articles are written to a professional standard and reflect genuine expertise in the history and science of painting materials.
The technical library is a resource in its own right, independent of the products it supports. Painters who want to understand why the old masters' paintings look the way they do, how specific techniques were achieved, and what materials were actually used will find the Natural Pigments technical library one of the most informative sources available on these subjects.
The customer base for Natural Pigments spans professional painters working in traditional techniques, art conservators who need historically accurate materials for restoration work, art historians and researchers studying historical painting techniques, and serious amateur painters who want to understand and work with the same materials used by the painters they admire.
The company's materials are used in the conservation departments of major museums, in the studios of painters working in classical realist and traditional techniques, and in academic research on historical painting methods. This breadth of professional use reflects the genuine quality and authenticity of the materials and the depth of the technical knowledge behind them.
Natural Pigments is an irreplaceable resource for any painter who wants to work with historical materials, understand traditional painting techniques, or simply have access to the full range of pigments and mediums that serious oil painting requires. The combination of an unmatched product range, exceptional technical documentation, and genuine expertise in historical painting materials makes it the definitive source for painters who take their materials seriously.
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