Gamblin Artist Oil Colors
A dependable American professional oil line, clean and consistent, with a handful of colours worth a permanent spot on the palette.
Gamblin Artist Oil Colors are a professional, artist-grade line made in Portland, Oregon. They are consistent batch to batch, widely stocked, and reasonably priced for the quality. The line to buy is the Artist grade, not the 1980 student paint. Used the way a working palette is built, tube by tube on the merit of each colour, Gamblin earns its place for specific pigments rather than as a whole-palette purchase.
Gamblin is one of my favourite paint brands. I reach for it for specific colours, phthalo green sits on my working palette. When I say Gamblin I mean the Artist Oil Colors, not the student line. I also use their Gamsol as my thinner.
The Gamblin range is broad and excellent, and plenty of painters build a whole palette from it. These are the specific colours I use.
- Phthalo Greenthe colour I pull from Gamblin
What it is. A professional artist-grade oil colour line, plus mediums and the Gamsol odourless solvent, made in the US.
Why it matters. A clean, consistent professional paint keeps mixtures honest, and a dependable, widely stocked line is easy to restock without changing the colours that matter.
The tradeoff. The 1980 line is Gamblin's student grade, a different product with less pigment, do not confuse the two. And for the colours where another maker simply does it better, buy that maker's tube. Staying loyal to one brand is not the goal.
The Artist Oil Colors line is a solid professional paint, clean and consistent, and it makes a few pigments better than most. Buy the Artist grade rather than the 1980 student line, and use it for the colours where it is the best version.
Artist Oil Colors are the professional, high-pigment line. 1980 is the student grade, less pigment and more filler. If cost is the concern, buy fewer Artist-grade tubes and work more limited rather than filling a box with student paint.