Collection: Gamblin Artist Oil Colour - Blacks, Greys, & Whites

Black & Greys

At least since the time of the Neo-Impressionists there has been a controversy about making greys. Thinking greys made from black are lifeless, some painters never allow black on their palettes; they only make greys from complements.

While overusing black in a painting will make it look dirty, neutral greys made from black and white are the same as neutral greys made from exact complements. Greys made from complements are more lively because they are incomplete mixtures of one color next to another. So come back to black with Gamblin Chromatic Black, a neutral, tinting black made from complementary colors.

An interesting alternative to mixing with white, the Portland Greys quickly lower the intensity of a color without changing its Munsell value.

Our range of Portland Greys is expanded with Portland Warm Grey and Portland Cool Grey. A triad of muted primary colors is created when Titanium Buff is added to these. This gives painters the ability to complete a range of “colored greys” for nuanced color mixing.

Whites 

White is the heart of any line of artists’ colors. Between half and three-quarters of the paint on most oil paintings is white, so the white color holds most paintings together.

When selecting white oil colors, consider tinting strength. The more opaque the white, the higher its tinting strength and the more it will “reduce” the color. The higher the tinting strength, the lighter the value of the color/white mixture (tint).

Radiant White, our most buttery white, and Titanium White have the highest tinting strength. Excellent for direct painting styles, they make the brightest, most opaque tints and will reflect the highest percentage of light off the painting surfaces.

The Flake White Replacement project evolved from a prominent artist’s request for Lead (Flake) White, which had been the only white pigment commonly available until titanium dioxide was produced in 1920. Not surprisingly, the artist wanted Flake White’s working properties without the lead. Challenged, Robert tested all the Flake White oil colors on the market and found tremendous differences among them.

To make Gamblin’s version, he matched the working properties generally considered typical of Lead White: warm in color, a dense and heavy paste with a long and “ropey” quality, and a unique look to the impasto stroke.