Click below to watch the recorded livestream
RUTH FITTON: ALLA PRIMA PORTRAIT TRAILER
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Ruth is a fine artist and portrait painter based in London, UK.
Ruth has been fascinated by portraiture since her mid-teens. Her imagination is sparked by the human face, and its unique capacity for character and communication. Ruth taught herself to paint in oils while also studying for a BA in Music, and on graduating began painting full-time.
Since then, Ruth’s paintings have gathered praise across the globe. Recent awards include 2nd Place Figurative Work in the Art Renewal Center International Salon (2025), the People's Choice Award in the Portrait Society of America International Competition (2023), a Purchase Award from the Art Renewal Center (2021) and 1st Place Young Artist award with the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (2020). In 2023 Ruth was elected a Member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, and awarded Signature Status by the Portrait Society of America.
“My work is almost always figurative; it is humanity, facial expression, and body language which spark my imagination. I want to communicate, and I always strive for a strong narrative element in my paintings. Inspirations include the work of pre-Raphaelite and naturalist painters, and post-impressionist painters (Waterhouse, Bastien-LePage, Friant, Bramley).
I am passionate about painting from life – I’m drawn to the organic experience of capturing my immediate reality in paint. This passion is balanced by a keen curiosity regarding texture, layers, and edges. I constantly seek the most imaginative ways to make paint replicate the feel and character of what I see. Quick, immersive live studies are generally followed by extensive studio work.”Ruth has exhibited at Sotheby’s NYC, Arcadia Contemporary NYC, MEAM Barcelona, the Mall Galleries London, and is represented by London galleries Panter&Hall and Fine Art Commissions.
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Medium: Oils
Skill Level: All Levels
Duration: 3 hours 40 minutes
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Ruth Fitton’s Live Stream
Ruth Fitton’s Materials List
Ruth Fitton’s Reference Image
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Drawing & structural set-up
Value and plane structure
Brushwork & edges
Colour mixing & skin tones
Compositional & narrative awareness
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This video will be available to re-watch at your leisure until 24th September 2027.
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Yes! As soon as you purchase, you will have access to Ruth’s materials list, so you can paint along from home.
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We do sell some of them, yes! We have listed them below.
*Worldwide shipping is available, please email us if your country is not available at the checkout.
Ruth Fitton’s materials, available from our online store…
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Titanium White No. 1 is the most brilliant white in my range, suitable for crisp, cool, opaque, light shades. If you want a powerful mixer that lightens , then this is it. Although not subtle, this white is the most suitable for a bright, fresh palette. It forms a strong and durable film when cured. PW6 is an inorganic pigment.
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Inorganic – My Cadmium Red is a powerful, orange shade red with the usual cadmium characteristics of high tint power and opacity. This red presents warm, almost fiery hues when mixed with a more transparent white.
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Inorganic – Cobalt stannate was introduced in 1870 under the name ‘Cerulean’, i.e. sky-blue, in imitation of a Roman pigment of that name. It’s a subtle, greyish turquoise that discerning painters value for its mild hues for landscapes and seascapes. No. 602 is a gorgeous, unique blue with excellent covering power.
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Inorganic – Cadmium Sulphide is a dense, lean, mid-shade warm yellow, indispensable as a foundation colour for warm mixes of all kinds.
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Organic – Alizarin Crimson is the oldest synthetic, organic lake introduced in 1868, and the only lake of the coal-tar lake range to have survived in use until the present. Before the end of the 19th-century, other Lakes were found too impermanent, and some Amerian authorities frown on Alizarin because its lightfastness (II-III on the ASTM scale) doesn’t match that of more recent organic red pigments. But its clarity and subtly beautiful bluish undertones are unique; since its introduction, portraitists have prized its range of cool, rather smoky hues, which are well suited for Caucasian tones. If you have concerns about using Alizarin Crimson, try mixing transparent oxide red with magenta for “look-alike” oil paint, or use Alizarin Claret.
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Inorganic & Organic – Sap Green is a generic name for a rich, deep green. Colourmen progressively changed its composition through a variety of natural, organic lakes. This green has an exceptionally rich, earthy, even mossy range of yellow undertones that suggest all variations of vegetation and undergrowth. Permanent Sap Green is ideal for the landscape/plein air painter.
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Inorganic – Yellow Ochre is a higher-keyed and more green-gold shade of manufactured Iron Oxide. Its hues yield mustardy yellows quite close to Genuine Naples Yellow Dark. No. 119 possesses an almost viscous texture and is a lovely colour for flesh tones, landscapes, and non-figurative works.
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Inorganic – Manganese Ammonium Pyrophosphate is a bold, heavy Violet that was first made in Germany in 1868 as one of the mid-19th century wave of synthetic inorganic metal salts that prompted a change in artists’ palettes. Manganese Violet has mild, reddish overtones that do not cut through mixes and that some find useful when making reflex or shadowy greys. Its average tint power allows it to be added without greatly lowering the tonality of the result.
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Inorganic – Viridian is about the fastest curing colour in my entire range, along with Stack Lead White. This hydrated variant of Chromium Hydroxide, introduced in the mid-19th century, is a valued support colour used for influencing greys in underpainting. The vivid blue undertones apparent in thin layers are soon eclipsed in thicker applications. Landscapists and some portraitists still prefer it to the more brutal power of the Phthalo Greens. When combined with reds, an interesting range of blue-greys results. Placing it as local colour in the proximity of vermilion can also produce some interesting complementary effects.
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Inorganic, Natural Earth – Burnt Sienna is one of the natural earth iron oxides, of such antiquity and usefulness it barely needs an introduction. It creates rich but subdued pinks, which reveal how transparent and warm are its undertones. Its Tint Power is noticeably stronger than the more opaque Earths.
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Inorganic – No. 113 is an obviously beautiful mid-blue. The discovery in the 1820s of a Sodium Sulphosilicate compound, which had appeared as a mysterious blue deposit on soda-ash furnaces, was a liberating moment for financially challenged artists everywhere. Up to then the only available version of this compound was the often-unobtainable Lapis Lazuli ore, mined in Afghanistan. Ultramarine has a high tint power, and our chosen shade produces strong green shade blue hues and makes wonderful violets with Magenta and the red Lake colours. It is also useful in greens and greys. The only chemical weakness is a recorded sensitivity to atmospherically borne acids, which can bleach it out. Ultramarine Blue is one of the more difficult paints to make, as it forms an intractable runny syrup when first ground into oil, which must then be stabilized with a small amount of wax.
