Review:
Paul Ruben 170ml titanium white oil paint
Aka, the big one
I give the paint 10 out of 10, but the container would be hard pressed to get a 3 out of 10.
This is a good mid-grade white paint. A workhorse paint with decent tinting strength. It works well with all student oil paint brands I have tried and can hold it's own with professional grade oil paint. The open time is about two days (time the paint stays workable at room temperature) but is easily extended to weeks with a clove box.
There was no binder separation (oil oozing out), and the moderate drying time and texture makes me feel there is no excess filler or additives.
It's also a massive amount of paint for $10 canadian. (Winton, cheapest student paint around here, 200ml is about $30cad). I bought three.
This titanium white is much higher quality than any of the other paul rubens paints I tried. Even their other whites.
I used this paint for studio studies and even some of my more time worthy paintings. I would love to use this paint en plein air (on the go), except the tube itself is a pain.
After a week or so, little pinpricks holes started forming at he back end of the tube (
it's good to squeeze from the back). It took a while to figure out why I kept getting paint on my hands. When I tried using a paint roller key where we roll the tube around the key shaped thing to push the paint forward, the tube ripped. I am gentle with my paint tubes and haven't had this happen before or since. Trying to crimp it and fold over the broken bits caused more holes, so i patched it with gaffer tape. And over time the oil desolved much of the tape, but whatever.
If only that was the only issue I had with this tube.
Before I bought my first paint, I learned that caps are the main failure point. Cracking of plastic caps was a historical norm, as most plastics do badly when exposed to oil. Always keep old caps that survived. Always keep you threads clean, inside and out. Always be gentle when applying, careful to not cross thread and never tighten in anger.
I took these lessons to heart, so I was shocked to see this lid split apart between the inner and outer shell. In the end, I had to let ths paint build up as it acted as a barrier like the lid was supposed to. Although it also means I can't leave the paint idle as eventually, all the paint would harden in the tube. Good thing I like the paint.
In the end, I got so frustrated with the packaging, i put the remaining paint in some spare tubes (we can buy empty tubes from art suppliers like Kama). There is probably about 30 to 40ml of paint left. There is probably another 10ml i couldn't get out of the old tube. We load the new tubes from the back of the tube, keep tapping the air out, then crimp and turn the open end to seal it. The same repair that didn't work on the paul rubens tube.
If you ever see this paint, it's a good quality at an affordable price...even including the spare paint tubes.
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