That one was a hard decision to make! We ended up going with Art Spectrum, as it is a well known professional Australian brand and Langridge to support another Australian brand and one which aims its artist extra fine colours to be up there with the very best and to offer true Australian colours. We also now stock a good quality and value for money student range: Sennelier‘s Rive Gauche.
If you were after an water-based oil, we do not stock a range but have a medium that will transform all your normal oil paints into water-based one (we decided that was a better way to go… better paint, more colour options than in all the existing ranges.)
Want to know more about our ranges of oil paint? Please scroll down…
- Art Spectrum : 96 colours
Available in 40ml and 150ml tubes, 500ml (series 1 to 4),1L and 4L (only in Titanium white) Art Spectrum is a very good value Australian professional oil paint. To make their oils AS use only lightfast pigments and pure linseed oil (safflower oil in whites). All colours are triple-milled to ensure that every pigment particle is completely coated with the vehicle, and evenly dispersed. This results in a stable paint film which has even surface tensions. All Art Spectrum’s oil colours are permanent and improved permanency information and new pigments have enabled them to replace the toxic and fugitive colours with non-toxic and cleaner colours of superior lightfastness. AS does not substitute pure pigments with blanc fixe (a heavy filler) to simulate quality by artificially increasing the weight of oil paints. Their careful selection ensures clean colours and superior colour mixing without muddiness. Their colours include a unique range developed for the Australian landscape.
- Langridge : 80 colours available in 40ml, 110ml tubes (certain colours in 300ml caulkers)
Langridge is an truly serious and creative Australian company I discovered when researching for my art supplies.. there are some competent and passionate people behind these labels and everything they produce is of the very highest quality… enjoy buying these whilst knowing they are home made! (If you want to know more about this company, you might enjoy reading the post in bed with David Coles in my blog.)
Langridge oil paints have been developed to excel in saturation of colour and physical handing qualities. All colours are made without modifiers, opacifiers, fillers or anything that might interfere with the true brightness of the pigment. The paint is triple-milled in the best tradition and their range (limited but growing) has the fullest chromatic strength, intense tinting power, excellent lightfastness and extreme clean colour-mixing potential on the palette. They are aiming at producing the finest oil paints in the world… no less!
- Sennelier Rive Gauche: 60 colours in 40ml tubes
- From its earliest days, Paris has been Sennelier’s source of inspiration and that is what makes it such a Parisian brand. Sennelier began in Paris in 1887, opposite the Louvre and just a stone’s throw away from the École des Beaux-Arts, which is the world epicentre for arts and is located on the Left Bank (the ‘Rive Gauche’). From the Latin Quarter to Montparnasse, this symbolic riverside area has proven to be one dominated by artists, intellectuals, musicians, professors and students. Being proud of its origins, the name ‘Rive Gauche’ consequently seemed a natural choice for Sennelier Fine Oils. These dry twice as fast whilst retaining the key characteristics of oil painting. Safflower oil, a totally non yellowing oil( 50% less than linseed oil), is used to make the 60 colours and has excellent compatibility with pigments. Rive Gauche fine oils use new pigments, which are high-performance cadmium substitutes that offer opaqueness and luminosity properties that are almost equivalent to real cadmium-based oils. The range offers a rich, balanced palette of colours: 52 opaque colours | 6 semi-opaque colours | 2 transparent colours | 4 iridescent colours.
Also check the oil sticks as, after all, they are oil paints in a stick!
