Testimonials

My name is Paola Marinangeli and I am an artist specialised in horses and dogs. I have started very recently to know and use your oil colours, my art material supplier (Ditta Poggi in Rome - Italy) suggested me to try your brand saying ''these are the best oil colours in the world...''. Well I want to tell you that my supplier was perfectly right, your range of oil colours is fantastic, exceptional quality, exceptional mixing power, super light and consistent, a pleasure to use and a great source of joy when realising that a painting is coming out even better than what's originally planned and hoped, thanks also to your oil colours.
Paola Marinangeli, Arabian Horse Art, Rome.
Love your paint! I was using Sennelier and Old Holland before I discovered your oil paint and now can't do without it.I am addicted: the luminosity I aim for in many of my works just isn't possible without your paints. Thanks!!
Deidre But-Husaim, http://users.senet.com.au/~pixel/
Just wanted to add my voice to what must, by now, be a chorus of thanks to you for creating the ultimate oil paint. I've been painting in oils for 3 decades, and never, NEVER, have I experienced paint like yours. I can make it do anything I want. The consistency is silky without being too "oily. I can lay down the thinnest of layers with no medium at all and still have total coverage with the opaque colours, and the desired stained-glass look with the transparent ones. I can leave thick impasto brush-strokes, which dry without wrinkling. The pigment load is the highest I have seen (including paint lines that are more expensive), without the consistency becoming that of a paste. The colour clarity is intense and miraculous. I suppose I am a passionate person. In this relatively graceless age, when I find something being beautifully made, or a service painstakingly rendered, it seems such a rare thing I feel I should make certain the craftsman or service-person knows their excellence is noticed and appreciated. So often we just forget to say, "Thank You!"
Rebecca Neef, Cedar Creek, Texas, USA
I just wanted to let you know that I have started using your paints after using Winsor and Newton for many years. What a difference! They are beautiful to work with. I will certainly recommend them to others when I can. Thank you.
Michael Reid
I am a professional artist from Switzerland and I find your oil colours best of all I ever used. I hope you are young and in the best of health because you are a consolation for the artist and the world (and me) need you for a lot a lot of years ahead!
Nicola Cathieni

Thanks so much for that color chart! Fantastic piece of work, and I said so on WC! Love your stuff.

I was doing some paint mixing color test yesterday (Trisha Hardwick and I correspond daily about color issues, makers and mixes), and I used several of the Doak paints (along with some of your). The point is: although I like the Doak colors very much, the consistency and handling was just awful! I had done limited tests before, but they used OH Cremnitz as the mixing white, which hid much of the runniness of Doak's product. Yesterday I actually mixed Doak with Doak and had a mess. I prefer your consistency, on up to short paint like OH. So -- you come out ahead on another front, extending your lead over Doak, and others.

Jim Harris (AKA gunzorro)

I have used every paint mentioned in this thread over my 15 years of painting. I have flip flopped over which paints to use and my reasons have often been theoretical rather than derived from hard experience -until recently.

During the last two years I began painting large impressionistic paintings from life -three or four a week, as well as some large murals. As you can imagine, this became very expensive. Thus, I began conserving my Gamblin, W&N, and Old Holland paints and buying Winton and Daler-Rowney Georgan paints instead. (I avoid all of Winton's "hue" colors and buy actual cadmiums.) Everything seemed to go well for a while. Then I began noticing that my opaque colors were losing some of their opacity. Mind you, I varnish my pictures, so I am not complaining about colors sinking in. I mean that they actually began showing my gray underpainting through, dulling color down everywhere. This never happened when I used Gamblin, W&N, and Old Holland.

To determine what was going on, I began testing the tint strength of all brands of paint I use. I also included three new tubes of Michael Harding paints. I was scrupulously careful with my paint measurements: EXACTLY one quarter teaspoon of color to EXACTLY one full tablespoon of titanium white. The results were illuminating.

First off, Daler-Rowney was ALWAYS the weakest paint. I figured it would be. I use it only for large murals. Surprisingly, there was less difference between some of my artist grade paints and the Winton line than I had expected. For example, when I tested Cad Red Light, PR 108, Gamblin and Winton had similar strength -Gamblin being only SLIGHTLY stronger. For the price, you would think Gamblin would have far better tint strength! In cheaper pigments like Ultramarine Blue, however, Gamblin was noticeably stronger than Winton or Rowney. My conclusion is that when the pigment is cheap, Gamblin uses less alumina sterate and more cheap pigment. When the pigment is costlier, Gamblin cuts their paint with additional stabilizer. Winton and Rowney, on the other hand, seem to use the same high amount of stabilizer with all of their pigments, including their whites -Winton being slightly stronger than Rowney. Now for the shocker.

The three tubes of Michael Harding paints were stronger in tint strength than any other paint I tested. They were stronger both in cheaper pigments as well as the costlier ones. They were even stronger when the color out of the tube looked weaker. For instance Gamblin's Transparent Earth Yellow looks much darker and richer than Harding's Transparent Oxide Yellow, (both pigments listed as PY 42 transparent). However, Harding's still had greater tint strength and made a cleaner, brighter tint.

So does any of this matter? To me it does. When I paint a commissioned portrait, I have to use artist grade paints. I cannot tolerate the fluctuating opacity of Winton paints. As far as the greater tint strength of the Harding paints, I have decided to replace my Gamblin and W&N as I run out.

This does not mean I am against Winton / Rowney and other student paints. I agree with a previous post about the importance of not painting with inhibitions. My experience with Winton and Rowney has helped me to 'paint like a pig eats', to borrow from one of Sorolla's students. I wouldn't have gotten here if I knew I was squirting out $20 of paint every time I started a new picture.

I will continue to paint with gusto despite now spending more on the Harding paints. If my work is as good as I think it is, it deserves to be painted in the strongest and most stable paint I can afford.

Dexter Haven, Muralist

Posts from wetcanvas.com

High pigment loading paints

You can read what Martha Gamblin says about Unbleached Titanium.

Pigment Load and Impasto

Michael Harding

wetcanvas.com

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