Ruth Fitton
Ruth Fitton is a contemporary British artist recognized for her expressive figurative paintings and emotionally driven visual storytelling. Her work often explores themes of identity, human connection, memory, and the subtle complexities of everyday life. Through a combination of rich color palettes, textured surfaces, and gestural brushwork, Fitton creates paintings that feel intimate, atmospheric, and deeply personal.
Fitton’s artistic style blends elements of realism with abstraction, allowing her subjects to appear both recognizable and emotionally interpretive. She is particularly known for capturing mood and psychological depth, often portraying figures in quiet, reflective moments. Her compositions emphasize emotion over strict detail, giving her paintings a sense of movement and spontaneity.
Influenced by both classical portraiture and modern contemporary art, Ruth Fitton’s work reflects a balance between technical skill and emotional expression. Her paintings have been featured in exhibitions and collections that celebrate contemporary figurative art, earning attention for their sensitivity and distinctive visual language.
Through her evolving body of work, Fitton continues to explore the relationship between figure, atmosphere, and emotion, establishing herself as a compelling voice in contemporary painting.
You can shop Ruth's recommended products below…
Essentially a Walnut oil based Oleogel.
Walnut Oil Gel is a thixotropic (meaning the more it is worked the more fluid it becomes) painting medium made with walnut oil and pyrogenic silica. lt is a clear pale amber gel that adds transparency and thixotropic body to paint. Add pigments or extenders to thicken it for creating impasto effects that do not sink in. It will increase the drying time of oil paint.
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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.
New Wave u.go Anywhere Pochade Box is designed for plein air painting and has a number of unique features to enhance the painting experience when outdoors.
Each Pochade box is handcrafted and made with hand-sanded Baltic Birch. It is then finished with a New Wave proprietary wood finish for maximum durability. The finish is non-porous, dense, and resistant to water, as well as standard artist solvents and mediums. In addition, the finish is crack proof, chip proof, and non-yellowing. New Wave use stainless steel and aluminum accents, all of which is non-corrosive.
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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 – 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.
New Wave u.go Anywhere Pochade Box is designed for plein air painting and has a number of unique features to enhance the painting experience when outdoors.
Each Pochade box is handcrafted and made with hand-sanded Baltic Birch. It is then finished with a New Wave proprietary wood finish for maximum durability. The finish is non-porous, dense, and resistant to water, as well as standard artist solvents and mediums. In addition, the finish is crack proof, chip proof, and non-yellowing. New Wave use stainless steel and aluminum accents, all of which is non-corrosive.
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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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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.
Pigment: Pw 6,PBk6 (Lamp)
Exactly as stated, a neutral grey with a slightly warm undertone. I am informed my Neutral Grey is equivalent to a seven (7) on the Munsell scale.
We decided to release a limited edition of 5 prints of Ruth’s demonstration. We have had these printed professionally.
Giclee Print on Watercolour Print Paper - Size A3 - Signed in Oils by Ruth Fitton
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Inorganic – This Iron Oxide has been used as a wood dye, and I realised that its capacity to enrich the grain of hardwood made it a wonderful candidate for paint making. Michael’s Transparent Red Oxide is an Iron Oxide manufactured to such a small pigment particle size that like its yellow counterpart, it possesses Lake-like characteristics. No. 220 has terrific tint power that produces wonderful results in mixes with yellows and brings gravity to mid-red tones. Mix it with phthalocyanine blue for an interesting surprise!
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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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Pigment: Pw 6.1
This NAAP colour is based on my Unbleached Titanium Dioxide in oil colour and uses the same pigment, PW6.1. It’s ideal for creating a good neutral base colour upon which to work and is extremely lightfast.
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Inorganic – A powerful orange shade red with the usual cadmium characteristics, Cadmium Red Light has high tint power and opacity. This red presents warm, almost fiery hues when mixed with a more transparent white.
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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.
Gamsol is the safest solvent that allows oil painters to utilise all traditional painting techniques without compromise.
Primary Uses for Gamsol:
Thinning oil colours. A little goes a long way; stiff oil colours relax immediately when a little Gamsol is added. Be careful not to thin oil colours too much with solvent alone, this can compromise the ability of the paint to form a paint film.
Modifying painting mediums. Gamblin's Galkyd line of painting mediums is formulated with Gamsol, so they readily accept Gamsol as a thinning agent. Note: Gamsol should not be added to painting mediums made with natural resins (dammar, copal, mastic). They require strong solvents such as turpentine.
Studio clean up: brushes, palettes, palette knives, etc.
How does Gamsol achieve this level of performance and safety? Most solvents available to artists come from the industrial paint industry where solvent power and cheapness is prized. Gamsol is special: it is made for products and processes that come into more intimate contact with the body such as cosmetics, hand cleaners, and cleaning food service equipment.
Gamsol is a petroleum distillate but all the aromatic solvents have been refined out of it, less than .005% remains. Aromatic solvents are the most harmful types of petroleum solvents.
These facts are detailed in the MSDS for Gamsol, this document shows that it has an Exposure Limit Value higher than most solvents available to artists.
All of these factors have lead to Gamsol being used widely in oil painting classrooms; in those classes there are no solvent odours, only the wonderful smell of oil colours.
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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.
Organic, Natural Earth – An impure, amorphous Carbon in Calcium Phosphate, Ivory Black is no longer made from burnt ivory scraps but from charred animal bones. It is denser in shade and cooler than Lamp Black, with stronger tint power. Ivory Black, the blackest of the blacks, is the most frequently used black in the range.
