Oil bars - an evaluation (oilbar, oil stick review)
M Winther
I bought a couple of oil bars and made an oil painting exclusively
with them. Oil bars are made of regular oil paint mixed with wax. The
reason why they don't dry up is because the wax emerges and covers the
surface after a while. This is why you have to wipe away this layer of
wax before using them. The adverts say that oil bars give you a fine
control, but it's not true. They are clumsy tools. In most cases
you'll have to use knife or brush anyway to negotiate the colour. In
this way certain fine aspects of the wax-oil blend can show to
advantage. It can give rise to surface effects. Certain pigments, such
as mauve, create fine glazing effects together with a marked texture.
However, the same wax-oil effect can be achieved by adding wax to
regular oil colours, which is a well-known technique.
I had expected oil bars to dry faster than regular oils, but it
doesn't seem like the effect is marked. So in this respect they don't
make life easier for the oil painter. It seems like the marketing idea
behind oil bars is an illusion: "Children paint with crayons. Hence
it's now child's play to paint with oils as we have now created oil
crayons." But the truth in the matter is that oil pastels, for
instance, are much more difficult to use than tube oils and brushes.
The latter are more versatile and easier to control. Just because
children use crayons doesn't mean that crayons are easy to get an
artistic result from. However, professional oil pastels are probably
easier to use than oil bars as pastels are better designed to be mixed
by adding layers and smearing.
A drawback of oil bars is that you cannot handle poisonous colours,
such as the deadly cadmium pigments (yellow, orange, red, green,
etc.), in a responsible way. You will inevitably get cadmium on your
hands. When you peel off the plastic and the paper that cover the bar,
little chunks of colour will fall to the floor, etc. Certain bars have
a weak consistency and will tend to crumble, similar to crayons.
Typically, the cat could get cadmium on his fur, lick on it, and die
of kidney disease. The bars are a lure to little children, as they
look like candy bars, so they should be locked away. I am strongly
against that they manufacture crayons from poisonous pigments.
Inevitably, these bars will lie around in a drawer, children will find
them, or parents might hand them to their children in the belief that
they are regular crayons.
In conclusion, I cannot recommend oil bars as they bring no advantage
at all over tube oils. They are clumsy and messy. However, as they
contain fine pigments, one should take the chance and buy them at
sellouts. One can use them as regular oil colours by smearing them on
a palette, adding a little turpentine, and paint with them in the
regular way.
Mats Winther