The different drying speeds of the pigments have always been a major problem in the process of oil painting, and the painter has to go in and out of the studio from time to time to check the drying progress of the paint. Schmink is the first and only artist-level brand on the market that focuses on uniform drying, and in 1881 it opened the brand's 100-year art history with an exclusive formula of oil paints, which led to the later invention of hand-poured solid watercolor.
Schminck's core oil paint series is made from a formula taught by Florentine professor Caesare Mussini, hence the name Mussini series. The Mussini series adds dammar resin to the dry oil used in the pigments – light, clear in color and with a wonderful sheen when dried, it is one of the natural resins most commonly used by the old masters for oil painting. When the dama resin inside the pigment is dried, it will form microscopic evaporation pores, which can not only reduce the surface tension of the pigment and make it less prone to cracking after drying, but also allow oxygen to enter the inner layer to achieve uniform drying inside and outside. In addition, Schmink also added necessary auxiliaries and additives to the pigment to unify the drying speed between different colors, which greatly saved the painter's calculation energy.
The types of dry oils used by Schmink are much richer than other brands, including linseed oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, etc., so that different pigments can achieve a uniform drying speed under the premise of higher concentration, and its durability data has also withstood the test of history, calculated in a 5-star system, 106 colors of 4 and 5 stars in 108 colors, and only 2 colors are 3 stars for durability.
Even if it is Schmingk's pioneering work, the Mussini series has been snubbed after the watercolor has taken over, its single pigment proportion is only 64/108, much inferior to the 95/139 of watercolor, and it is not as good as the above brands, 35ml is about 68-470 yuan, and it does not have a price advantage, and it is often absent in the evaluation.
The Norma range is a downgraded version of the Mussini range of pigments, without the signature dama resin, but with a different type of drying oil to fine-tune the drying time and a small amount of white essential oil as a desiccant, so it still has the usual uniform drying characteristics of Smink. However, the additives squeezed the concentration of pigments, and the proportion of single pigments in the series was only 47/84, and the overall performance was not as good as that of the Mussini series, and the price of 35ml did not exceed 215 yuan.
The college-grade AKADEMIE series is even more mediocre, with only 48 colors, made in multiple colors, blended with sunflower oil. Sunflower oil is not actually a dry oil, although it is cheap, it will make the picture wet for a long time, and it is basically not used in oil painting media.
