Explore Our Wide Selection of Oil Paints
Explore Our Wide Selection of Oil Paints
Shop Oil Colours
Shop Oil Paints
Metallic & Pearlescent Oils
Professional Oil Sets
Primed Papers
What Defines Professional Oil Paints?
Professional oil paints are a precise balance of high-quality pigments and specific binders designed to anchor color to your canvas. Unlike other mediums, Paul Rubens oils use premium drying oils like linseed or safflower to create a slow-drying, buttery paste. This "living" medium allows for seamless blending and a richness that has defined fine art for centuries. Our core principle is simple: maximizing pigment load for intense, archival-quality saturation.
Masterful Formulation
Our formulation process bridges traditional methods with modern chemistry. We source premium pigments globally, ensuring they are finely ground to specific microns to enhance light reflection. The milling process is critical: we ensure every tube offers a consistent viscosity—preventing oil separation and ensuring the color you squeeze is rich, stable, and ready for immediate application without the need for excessive mediums.
Techniques: Mastering the Slow Art
Oil paints are revered for their long working time, allowing artists to master wet-on-wet blending and subtle gradations over days. Whether you are building thick, expressive textures or practicing the classical "Glazing" technique to create luminous depth, Paul Rubens oils respond to your brush with precision. They cure through oxidation, allowing your masterpiece to evolve and stabilize with enduring strength.
Safety and Environmental Standards
Paul Rubens prioritizes modern, non-toxic alternatives without sacrificing vibrancy. Most of our oil lines are AP-certified and formulated to minimize odor and toxicity. We clearly label all pigment information, helping you make informed, safe choices for your studio practice.
Learn MoreArtist Material Advisor on Pigments
Mastering the Glaze: Oil Painting Techniques
Learn how to create luminous depth in your artwork. In this guide, we explore how Paul Rubens transparent oil colors can be layered to achieve the glowing effects seen in classical realism, and which mediums work best for this technique.
Acrylics for Impasto: Building Texture
Discover the structural capabilities of heavy-body acrylics. We compare the drying shifts and peak-retention of our acrylic range versus traditional oils, helping you decide which medium best suits your three-dimensional knife painting style.
The Paul Rubens Professional Promise
Paul Rubens Oils and Acrylics are engineered for artists who refuse to compromise on color. Unlike student-grade alternatives that rely on fillers and brighteners, our professional lines focus on high pigment concentration. This means the color you see wet is the color you get dry (minimal color shift in acrylics). Our oil colors are milled to a creamy, buttery consistency that holds brushstrokes beautifully, making them suitable for everything from vigorous impasto to delicate portraiture. We rigorously test for consistency. Whether you are buying a tube of Cadmium Red Hue today or a year from now, the texture and hue will match perfectly. Our goal is to make professional-grade materials accessible, allowing you to paint with the richness and intensity that your talent deserves. By balancing traditional manufacturing with modern pigment technology, we deliver paints that inspire confidence in every stroke.
Why Choose Professional Grade Media?
Many mass-market paints are manufactured to cut costs, resulting in "hue" colors that lack depth or opacity. To achieve profitability, some brands increase the ratio of binder to pigment, making the paint feel plastic or oily. The smaller the pigment load, the more layers you need to achieve coverage, leading to frustration and muddy mixtures. As Anita Albus noted, true art requires materials that have "soul" and substance. Artists often succumb to buying cheaper, large tubes, only to find they use twice as much paint to get the desired intensity. In cooking, a sauce is only as good as its ingredients; in painting, your work is only as good as your pigment. On the other hand, Paul Rubens paints are made to specifications that respect the artist's time and effort. You can use them straight from the tube for maximum impact or dilute them extensively without losing the core identity of the color. As you experiment with our oils and acrylics, you will notice the superior handling—how the paint responds to your brush, how it mixes cleanly, and how it retains its vibrancy long after drying.
Paul Rubens Standard Oil Colours
Our flagship oil collection features a broad spectrum of classic and modern hues. Milled from purified linseed oil and high-quality pigments, these paints offer excellent stability and a uniform drying time. The consistency is smooth and rich, allowing for effortless mixing. From deep, transparent earth tones to brilliant, opaque cadmiums, this series is the foundation of any oil painter's palette, designed to support both academic techniques and contemporary expression.
Pearlescent & Metallic Oils
Paul Rubens is renowned for innovation in shimmering colors. Our Pearlescent Oil series introduces mica-based pigments into the traditional oil medium. These colors offer a unique, light-refracting quality that adds a magical glow to your work. Perfect for accents, fantasy art, or abstract textures, these paints maintain the slow-drying workability of oils while providing an iridescent finish that changes with the viewing angle.
Professional Heavy Body Acrylics
Our flagship oil collection features a broad spectrum of classic and modern hues. Milled from purified linseed oil and high-quality pigments, these paints offer excellent stability and a uniform drying time. The consistency is smooth and rich, allowing for effortless mixing. From deep, transparent earth tones to brilliant, opaque cadmiums, this series is the foundation of any oil painter's palette, designed to support both academic techniques and contemporary expression.
Learn More About Pigments
Measuring Watercolor Granulation: A Practical, Objective Method for Artists
Mastering the Glaze: Oil Painting Techniques
Learn how to create luminous depth in your artwork. In this guide, we explore how Paul Rubens transparent oil colors can be layered to achieve the glowing effects seen in classical realism, and which mediums work best for this technique.
New Armenian Earth Oil Paints: Natural Colors from the Caucasus
Mastering the Glaze: Oil Painting Techniques
Learn how to create luminous depth in your artwork. In this guide, we explore how Paul Rubens transparent oil colors can be layered to achieve the glowing effects seen in classical realism, and which mediums work best for this technique.
Water Gilding with Bole: Applying and Burnishing Gold Leaf
Mastering the Glaze: Oil Painting Techniques
Learn how to create luminous depth in your artwork. In this guide, we explore how Paul Rubens transparent oil colors can be layered to achieve the glowing effects seen in classical realism, and which mediums work best for this technique.