Oil Paint Brand Ratings

Hi Tom. Thanks for a very useful website. Just wondering about your review above for RGH paints. When you say “cheap tubes that break or leak” did you by any chance mean their jars? I noticed on your paint raring table you complained about them not selling their paint in tubes which has made me wonder about the above comment ie thinking you might have meant to make reference to their jars rather than their tubes. I’d really like to know as I was just about to buy some of their lead in walnut oil. Cheers, Jenny

Many thanks, Thomas.

Hi Tom Sorry, it looks like I failed to respond to your comment on RGH paints way back when. Thanks so much for the info. Kind regards, Jenny

Thank you for taking your time and knowledge to write your views on the different Companies. i was holding my breath on Winsor&Newton evaluation and then let out a great sigh of relieve coz I seem to stick to what I like without experimenting with different companies.

HI Tom – Thanks for doing this review. After 30 years in business and sneaking away when possible, I have finally gotten back to my paints. I studied with Frank Mason at the Art Student’s League and in his outdoor atelier in Stow for 5 years. Back then (1980’s) he thought WN was the best bet other than grinding your own. Some of his students did and I was right in there for the zen of it but didn’t have the time and wanted to use the little I had to try to learn to paint. I sure makes you appreciate what goes into a beautiful material. Frank was always passionate about conservation, even for students. Meanwhile have you tried https://www.instagram.com/wallace_seymour/ Thanks so much for publishing your thoughts.
Best,
Trish

Have you tried Galla paints? I just ran across this brand and have never heard of them. I know about Rublev and Williamsburg and Blue Ridge et Al, but Galla is new to me. Anyway thanks for this service you provide .

Andrew, Fleming White is a completely different pigment (lead sulfate) from the lead white almost everyone is familiar with (basic lead carbonate). Despite having lead in it, it won’t behave the same way. That may be good and bad. Lead carbonate is known for improving the flexibility of paint films but it’s also (I think) becoming known for causing increased transparency over time. So, while you get the benefit of not getting cracking and delamination (as long as the lead carbonate is ground in linseed not poppy or safflower) you may find that the painting layers become more transparent. How many years that takes I don’t know but I think it’s a long time.

Lead sulfate is currently made for use in plastic for piping. From what I vaguely know about it it’s not the whitest form of lead sulfate white that has been produced in the industrial era, because a super-white (higher grade) isn’t as important as cost when it’s being used in plastic piping for added stability. Even ignoring the claim about the chlorinated version (which I’ll mention in the next paragraph), there may be a way to make the pigment that yields a brighter white. I haven’t used any lead sulfate white paint so I don’t really know from first-hand experience how white it is when compared with others. I have only seen some swatches in yellowing comparisons people have done. None of them had RGH’s Flemish white.

Long ago, in the quest for a less-toxic lead white, one type of lead sulfate white was made with chlorine in the manufacturing process. According to the documentation it had better opacity and was a brighter white than the lead sulfate we find today. As with some other whites, there are apparently grades of lead sulfate in terms of how white they are. I recall reading, for instance, that there is a pH difference (two types of contemporary lead sulfate, one with a different pH from the other — tetrabasic being preferable for artistic use).

It has been so many years since I researched all this that it’s hard to remember every detail. As far as I know, lead sulfate doesn’t form the lead soaps like lead carbonate. Those give lead carbonate a thixotropic/slippery quality that many painters like as well as both the more flexible paint film benefit and the transparency over time drawback. Since it doesn’t form those soaps, as far as I know, lead sulfate probably behaves more like titanium white than lead carbonate, although with certainly less opacity. Lithopone (zinc sulfide) is (according to one or more sources) supposed to have the problem of darkening with time. Zinc oxide has very serious problems in oils, causing very brittle paint films. So, perhaps lead sulfate is a good alternative to lithopone and zinc white. I don’t know. I would be really interested in seeing someone with a lab make some of that chlorine-process lead sulfate.

The most common use of lead sulfate white in industrial-era oil painting has been in primrose chrome yellow, where the lead sulfate was added to the palest form of pure lead chromate to make it paler and more greenish. That particular chromate paint is the least stable of all of them, blackening very rapidly. So, I would want to have testing to demonstrate that lead sulfate doesn’t darken and that that darkening was just because the chrome yellow was more diluted.

Rublev’s Flemish White, as I recall, is a mixture of lead carbonate and lead sulfate. The same goes for Blue Ridge, as far as I recall. RGH apparently makes one that is just lead sulfate. It would be interesting to get some of that one and test it for darkening. If it passes, perhaps it could be a good “mixing white” alternative to zinc white.

The parent company of Williamsburg oils did some testing for cracking with zinc white added to titanium. A massive oversight was that safflower oil wasn’t included. However, there were some very interesting results. Titanium white by itself looked really bad in a thicker layer. The surface was very pitted and ugly and the color was quite yellow. The addition of zinc helped very dramatically, although to get the full benefit it had to be added at a 5% rate. The problem is that 5% shows a lot of added brittleness. Their testing also claims that titanium white paint films can handle more zinc white than lead white paint films can handle, which is counterintuitive since lead white on its own offers the most flexible paint film. It’s unclear if a different production method for zinc white will have a strong effect in reducing the problems. I read one article that claimed Van Gogh used a lot of zinc white and that it hasn’t been a problem, in contrast with more recent paintings. The claim is that that is due to a different production method. The Williamsburg testing also found that poppy oil is the least yellow initially and over time but their swatch developed a lot of cracks with the poppy and not with the linseed oils. Of course, there was no swatch with safflower (nor walnut as I recall). They don’t sell poppy oil paints but do sell some in safflower. Also, the lead white in their tests looked nice without any zinc added, unlike the titanium which, again, looked terrible.

Tom, re: Galla paints – my bad apparently did not take note of them being only available as water colors.