Richard Frumess from R&F Paints visits SEFA Hudson

R&F Paints
Luscious Encaustic and Lipstick-Soft oil-based R&F Pigment Sticks®

 

Over the weekend we had the distinct pleasure of a visit to our Hudson location by Richard Frumess, a celebrity in the niche world of hand-made paint manufacturing. Frumess, founder of R&F Handmade Paints, and his wife, encaustic painter Pamela Blum, stopped in to see our current show This Land.

Speak to any encaustic painter in the US and they will inevitably mention R&F, the purveyor of inarguably the finest hand-made encaustic paint, mixed from a special blend of beeswax, resin and pigment; and a line of oil sticks, made from linseed oil, pigment and natural wax.

Many of SEFA’s own artists have used R&F products for years: Lisa Pressman, an R&F Core Instructor, describes their encaustic as “luscious and of consistently great quality.” Rachelle Krieger swears by the oil sticks, described on the company website as lipstick soft, “they have a higher pigment content [than other brands], which provides for a richer color. Also, they are the perfect consistency, while other brands tend to be too soft,” she says. Amber George says the encaustic is “superb—saturated with pigment.”

 

Frumess opened R&F in 1988 in Brooklyn, NY, and later moved the company to a small factory in Kingston, NY, near his home in the same Hudson Valley town. In addition to the manufacturing, sales and distribution of these premier paints and supplies, R&F hosts regular workshops on how to paint with their products. While the factory is in full swing, producing the paints, the workshops are on hold until further notice.

— Susan Eisner Eley

Visit R&F Handmade Paints

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