Contemporary knowledge dedicated to the making of traditional materials. Beautiful, high quality, bright paint.
 
Gamblin 1980 Oil Colors are made with the same dedication and pure pigments that go into our Artist's Oils. In addition, we use the same process of mixing, milling, filling, and hand labelling.
 
In order to reduce the cost of oil colours, some manufacturers use gels and wax to stiffen colours and replace traditional pigments with less expensive ones. Our approach is different. 1980 colours are formulated with pure pigments, the finest refined linseed oil and marble dust (calcium carbonate). More affordable colours have been made with these three ingredients since oil painting began. With 1980 colours, artists experience colours that are true, without homogenized texture or muddy colour mixtures.
 
Our approach of using both traditional raw materials and processes ensures that artists experience the luscious working properties that they expect from their oil colours. The chart below lists the pigments used in our 1980 colours and their relative opacity and transparency.
 
About 1980 Oil Colors = Best Student Grade Value
True colour. Real value.
 
Gamblin 1980 Oil Colors are made with the same dedication and pure pigments that go into our Artist’s Oils. In addition, we use the same process of mixing, milling, filling, and hand labelling.
 
In order to reduce the cost of oil colours, some manufacturers use gels and wax to stiffen colours and replace traditional pigments with less expensive ones.
 
Our approach is different. 1980 colours are formulated with pure pigments, the finest refined linseed oil and marble dust (calcium carbonate). More affordable colours have been made with these three ingredients since oil painting began.
 
With 1980 colours, artists experience colours that are true, without homogenized texture or muddy colour mixtures. Our approach of using both traditional raw materials and processes ensures that artists experience the luscious working properties that they expect from their oil colours.
 
Metals
 
Metallic paint is made of tiny flakes of real metal floating in a clear binder. It’s the light reflecting from all those bits of metal that create the “metal finish.” But though the microscopic flakes are real metal, they don’t line up evenly, so they bounce light around rather than reflecting it directly back at us like a mirror. This is why metallic painted surfaces always have that soft, flat look. The finer the metal flakes and the clearer the binder, the more reflective the surface will be.