It’s time again for School Me Saturday, our informal art school of sorts, and today we’re learning all about Gamblin Artists’ Oil Color‘s range of red oil colors:
Along with black and white, red made up the palette of pre-historic times. The combination of iron and oxygen is not only responsible for the red that flows through us but also the red in the landscape – the latter of which exists on Gamblin palettes in the form of Burnt Sienna, Venetian Red and Indian Red.
“I chose Cadmium Red Light as our company color, after reading Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art, which declares that yellow advances, blue recedes, green is at rest, and red vibrates in place. I saw Cadmium Red Light as vibrating with tremendous potential, which is what I hope our colors do for artists – to give them the potential to be their best with high energy.” — Robert Gamblin
From valuable earth colors, to bright and opaque Cadmium Red Light, to the cool transparency of Quinacridone, Gamblin Reds vary greatly in terms of their chroma, temperature, opacity and transparency. Below are all of Gamblin’s reds mapped out in Color Space:
| MINERAL REDS Brown Pink (PR101, PR149), TRANSPARENT Burnt Sienna (PBr7), SEMI-TRANSPARENT Cadmium Red Light (PR108), OPAQUE Cadmium Red Medium (PR108), OPAQUE Cadmium Red Deep (PR108), OPAQUE Indian Red (PR101), OPAQUE Portland Warm Grey (PW6, PR101, PBk11), OPAQUE Transparent Earth Red (PR101), TRANSPARENT Venetian Red (PR101), OPAQUE MODERN REDS Alizarin Permanent (PR177), TRANSPARENT Napthol Red (PR112), SEMI-TRANSPARENT Napthol Scarlet (PR188), SEMI-TRANSPARENT Perylene Red (PR149), TRANSPARENT Quinacridone Magenta (PR122), TRANSPARENT Quinacridone Red (PV19), TRANSPARENT Radiant Magenta (PV19, PW6), OPAQUE Radiant Red (PV149, PW6), OPAQUE |
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Alizarin Permanent – closer to its namesake
If we had to consolidate all of the feedback we’ve received over the years regarding Alizarin Permanent, it’s that painters miss the chroma of traditional Alizarin Crimson in tints and mixtures.
Gamblin Alizarin Permanent was a mixture of anthraquinone red (PR177) and a small amount of phthalo emerald (PG36) which was in the mix to deepen the mass tone of the color. It’s such a small amount and this pigment is so sensitive to the pressure of the mill, that we felt that AP was getting too dark, especially compared to traditional Alizarin Crimson. Alizarin Crimson has always been our target for the color of Alizarin Permanent.
So, we moved AP to a single pigment (PR177) formula. Not only does this make it closer to the masstone and transparency of Alizarin Crimson, but it is higher in chroma in tints and mixtures. If you want to match the darker formula, add a very small amount of either Chromatic Black or Phthalo Emerald.
