For oil paintings, gouache and other types of paintings that need to be painted in all aspects, black, white, gray and other "colorless" play an important role in color mixing and filling the picture, and the amount used is often greater than that of color pigments, especially in ancient paintings. Founded in 1980 entirely dedicated to oil painting materials, founder Robert Gamblin is particularly keen on "colorlessness", with a total of 8 whites on his color spectrum, as well as Chromatic blacks, which are easier to connect with colors. Gamblin has a long history of providing mobile lectures for restorers of antiquities, and his oil paints have been used in the restoration of works by Leonardo da Vinci and Van Gogh, which are used in more than 250 museums worldwide.
The biggest feature of Gamblin is not that it is "colorless", but that it is non-toxic, it does not use any pigments based on lead, mercury or arsenic, and with very few exceptions, its pigments are completely non-toxic. Flake White Replacement is a non-toxic alternative to lead white developed by Gamblin, the raw material is titanium dioxide, but it is warmer than ordinary titanium dioxide, milky white, with short strokes consistent with traditional lead white, it is the toughest and densest white in Gamblin, and it is suitable for the bottom layer.
Gamblin's Chromatic black is also a major feature, under normal circumstances, oil paint manufacturers provide pure pigment black made of carbon or iron oxide black, which has high blackness, but it is difficult to mix and transition, and many painters choose to mix it themselves to obtain black pigments. Gamblin's Chromatic Black is a blend of quinacridone red and phthalocyanine emerald, which is more transparent than regular black, and the color is not stiff, allowing it to quickly create natural shadows when used to paint low-light objects such as tree trunks.
The above colors are all from Gamblin's artist-grade oil paints, there are no god-grade pigments that are particularly worth mentioning, and the price of 37ml is about 50-480 yuan, which is cheaper than brands such as Michael Harding and Old Holland that rely on pigments to shine. There are a total of 98 pigments, and the proportion of single pigment pigments is 71/98, and only Alizarin Crimso is not durable. Most brands of alizarin crimson are not durable, and Gamblin has PR177 alizarin as a permanent replacement, but there is still a certain color difference between the two.
Gamblin's artist-grade oil paints have a high concentration of pigments, the medium oil is refined linseed oil, and a few whites are made of safflower oil. His brushstrokes do not have the obvious characteristics of the old Holland, but they are also rarely criticized, and they are generally characterized by opaque colors with a strong sense of three-dimensionality, and the transparent color body is thin but the texture is clearer. Among the 98 colors, half of the transparent and opaque colors are available, and there are also many transparent colors in the earth color, and the color spectrum is generally bright, which is an ideal choice for glazing. Its green system also has a lot of transparent colors, yellowish, blue, earthy colors, the color span is larger than yellow, red, medieval, impressionist, American West or general landscape painting style has pigments to meet, is a good direction to choose green pigments.
Gamblin's collegiate oil paint, called 1980 Oil Paint, uses a pigment grade close to that of an artist's oil paint, but with the addition of calcium carbonate powder to reduce the proportion of pigment. The calcium carbonate powder used by Gamblin is transparent, which does not change the transparency of the pigment itself, but will reduce the saturation, and the calcium carbonate absorbs moisture, so there is no need to expect its durability, and the price of 37ml is about 27-45 yuan.
