Collection: Holbein Duo-Aqua - Waterbased Oils

Developed by Holbein in 1999 to offer the same high pigment quality and archival characteristics of Holbein’s Artists’ Oil line while allowing soap-and-water cleanup.

Duo-Aqua Oils are characterized by rich hues, high chroma, excellent lightfast ratings equivalent to that of traditional oil colour and superior working characteristics. Holbein specifically details 17 colours as “Elite” colours that contain heavy metal pigments like cadmiums and cobalts.

DUO offers 100 highly pigmented Artist Grade Colours suspended in a water soluble, Refined Linseed Oil.

DUO is compatible with all media including traditional oil colour and mediums, watercolour, gouache, acrylic gouache and acrylic. DUO is an excellent teaching tool and a superb printmaking ink.

While water will matte down the surface when mixed with DUO, like turpentine does to oil, the paint will have slightly reduced transparency when wet. When the water evaporates, full transparency will return to match the traditional counterpart exactly.

DUO blends and mixes naturally with traditional oil mediums, but water solubility is lost if traditional oils or mediums exceed 3% of the mixture. DUO is not classified as water-based colour, like gouache, watercolour or acrylic, but all these blend perfectly with DUO (add a few drops of water when blending with acrylic) for a variety of effects and techniques.

DUO Aqua Oil Colors are safer than traditional oils for use in the studio or classroom, and they can also be easily cleaned up with soap and water instead of solvents. While they work well with all different brush types, a stiff synthetic brush will have the best results when painting with DUO.