The Good Oil - Choosing the Oil That's Right for You

A Guide to Winsor & Newton's Oil Paints

When it comes to choosing an oil paint range, the options can feel overwhelming. Winsor & Newton offers several different ranges, each with their unique properties and benefits. Here, we will break down the differences between the four Winsor & Newton oil paint ranges: Artisan Water Mixable Oil Colour, Winton Oil Colour, Griffin Alkyd Oil Colour, and Artists' Oil Colour. By the end, you'll have a better understanding of which oil paint is best suited for your artistic needs and preferences.

Lets start with a brief rundown on each type of paint:

Winton Oil Colour

Winton Oil Colour is a student-grade range that offers a great balance of quality and affordability. The range features a high pigment to binder ratio, meaning your colours will be bright and intense. While these paints are not as lightfast as the Artists' range, they will still hold up well over time when properly cared for. The consistency is buttery and smooth, making them easy to blend and manipulate on the canvas.

Griffin Alkyd Oil Colour

Griffin Alkyd Oil Colour is perfect for artists who want the fast-drying properties of acrylic paints but the look and feel of oil paints. Thanks to the alkyd resin used in the formula, Griffin Alkyd Oil Colour dries to the touch in around 24 hours.

Artists' Oil Colour

The Artists' range is Winsor & Newton's highest quality oil paint range. They are made with the highest pigment load and the finest quality ingredients, ensuring that the colours are rich, vibrant, and long-lasting. These paints are also the most lightfast of the four ranges, ensuring that your artwork will stand the test of time. The consistency is buttery and smooth, allowing for easy blending and layering on the canvas. Artists' Oil Colour is perfect for professional artists who want nothing but the best paint for their artwork.

Artisan Water Mixable Oil Colour

The Artisan range is the perfect choice for artists who want to paint with oil, but without the use of solvents. These paints are water-soluble, making them easy to clean up with just soap and water. They can be thinned and mixed with regular oil paint.

So now you have a basic understanding of the different Winsor & Newton oil colour ranges, keep reading to find out more.

Winsor & Newton Winton Oil Colour

Among their extensive range of products, Winsor & Newton Winton Oil Paint is a popular choice. Let’s take a look at the features and qualities that set Winton Oil Paint apart and explain the reasons artists choose it. This particular range has been trusted by artists for many years due to its unique features that stand out from other options available in the market.

What Makes Winsor & Newton Winton Oil Paint Unique?

Winton Oil Paints have a higher pigment load compared to other artist-range paints, making them ideal for use in large volumes. As a result, these paints deliver incredible colour depth and purity, giving the artworks a unique liveliness. Artists can also expect great coverage, which is essential, especially when working on a large canvas.

The Winton range has a more uniform consistency, which ensures predictable outcomes for artists. Unlike artists' oil paints, the Winton range is slightly stiffer, which offers excellent retention of brush and palette knife strokes. This feature, coupled with the uniform consistency, makes Winton Oil Paints ideal choices for artists who want to create a textured effect or emphasize brushwork in their artwork.

Benefits of Winsor & Newton Winton Oil Paint

Winsor & Newton Winton Oil Paints come at a lower price point compared to other premium art supplies. The lower price point makes it an affordable option for emerging or hobbyist artists, without sacrificing the quality of their artworks.

Winsor & Newton Winton Oil Paints are made up of the finest pigments, resulting in consistent colour and high durability of the artwork. This feature is the reason why Winton Oil Paints are a favourite among artists who are looking for long-lasting paint choices. One of the major advantages of Winton Oil Paints is that they are also lightfast, meaning that the colours will not fade or shift over time.

Winsor & Newton recently added eight new colours to the Winton Oil Paint range, making the palette broader than ever before. The new colours are carefully chosen to give artists a wider range of options to choose from, and to suit various colour combinations. This enhances the freedom and flexibility of artists to express themselves and bring their artworks to life.

Winsor & Newton Griffin Alkyd Oil Colour

As an artist, you're always searching for new ways to explore your creativity and experiment with different mediums. Traditional oils can be a little daunting to work with, as the drying times can be prolonged, making it slow going, especially if you are used to working with acrylics. However, the development of alkyd paint has been a game-changer in the world of oil painting. With Winsor & Newton Griffin Alkyd Fast Drying Oil Colour, artists can benefit from a medium that provides the traditional effects of oil paint while having a faster drying time. If you are interested in learning more about Winsor & Newton Griffin Alkyd Oil Paint, keep reading.

What Makes Winsor & Newton Griffin Alkyd Oil Paint Unique?

Griffin Alkyd Oil Paint is unique due to its composition. It is a naturally derived vegetable oil that is polymerized to create a resin-like product. It is then mixed with a solvent, which results in a paint that is similar to traditional oil in terms of workability, but dries faster. Winsor & Newton made a breakthrough in the world of art in 1976 when they created this range of alkyd colours, which has since become a popular choice for artists across the globe.

Benefits of Winsor & Newton Griffin Alkyd Oil Paint

One of the most significant benefits of Griffin Alkyd Oil Paint is its fast drying time. This quick-drying feature can accelerate work progress, enabling artists to complete their paintings faster. For this reason, Griffin Alkyd paints can be an excellent option for outdoor painters or those who don’t have the studio space to allow for days of drying time. The colours remain workable for between 4 to 8 hours, making it easy to blend and manipulate the paint as desired. Apart from the speed, Griffin Alkyd Oil Paint also boasts excellent colour retention, which results in vibrant and intense colours on the canvas. Furthermore, consistent drying times across the range allow for easy overpainting, regardless of the painting surface.

Griffin Alkyd Oil Paints can be mixed with different mediums such as ink, alkyd gel, and oil paint. Artists can experiment with different mediums to achieve a variety of effects, such as increased transparency and washes. The combination of alkyd oil and other mediums can produce a unique texture on the canvas that is not achievable with traditional oils.

Winsor & Newton Artists' Oil Colour

Winsor & Newton's premium oil offering, Artists' Oil Colour is well-known for its vibrant colors, versatility, and high quality. Let's explore the features and benefits of Winsor & Newton Artists' Oil Colour so that you can decide if it's the right product for you.

What Makes Winsor & Newton Artists' Oil Colour Unique?

One of the unique qualities of Winsor & Newton Artists' Oil Colour is that they are formulated with the finest pigments, which result in beautiful and vibrant colours. Whether you are looking to use thick paint or create a very fine glaze, these oil colours can be easily manipulated to suit your preferred style. The tinting strength of these paints is also excellent, which means that a little bit goes a long way. Each tube of paint contains a calculated ratio of oil and pigment, tailored to the specific needs of that particular colour. Some pigments require more oil than others for optimal performance, and the company's experts have spent years refining their formulas to ensure the best possible results.

Most of the colours in the Winsor & Newton Artists' Oil Colour range are formulated from single pigments, making them a perfect choice for colour mixing purposes. When you mix two or more colours made from single pigments, the resulting colour is more predictable and less likely to muddy. This feature ensures that artists can mix new variations with confidence, and it is an attribute that sets the Winsor & Newton Artists' Oil Colour range apart from other oil paints on the market.

Benefits of Winsor & Newton Artists' Oil Colour

The high-quality production methods, combined with over 190 years of research and expertise, make Winsor & Newton Artists' Oil Colour virtually perfect. The scientific processes the company follows ensures that every tube of paint is the same high-quality paint every time. This consistency is essential, especially for artists who depend on the paint's performance to achieve the desired results in their artwork.

Another feature that sets Winsor & Newton Artists' Oil Colour apart is their lightfastness. This means that the colours of the paint do not fade or change over time, even when exposed to light. This feature is essential for artists whose works will be exhibited in galleries or museums as it guarantees that their artworks will look just as vibrant and fresh as they were when first painted.

Artists using oil paints have always been in search of vibrant and lightfast colours that can make their art stand out. While Cadmium-based colours have been a popular choice for artists for their vibrant hue, lightfastness, and opacity, it is also a harmful metal that is ecologically dangerous to mine and refine. Cadmium can pose health risks to artists if ingested, inhaled, or absorbed through the skin. However, at the same time, artists also look for options that are safer for the environment and their health without compromising on the quality of colours. That's why Winsor & Newton, have introduced 9 Cadmium-Free Artis' Oil Colours, retaining the same vibrancy, opacity, lightfastness and permanence, that has been tested-approved by artists.

Artists use Cadmium-Free options in the same way as traditional colours. They can be used on stretched canvases, wooden panels or papers. They can be applied straight out of the tube, thinned with a medium or solvent or mixed with other colours to achieve new hues. They can be applied with brushes, knives or any other tools to create different textures and effects. The flexibility of Artists' Oil Colours, including Cadmium-Free options, allows artists to experiment with their art and create unique pieces.

Winsor & Newton Artisan Water Mixable Oil Colour

You may have heard of the unique and innovative product created by Winsor and Newton called the Artisan Water Mixable Oil Colour. This oil colour is made of modified linseed oil and safflower oil, making it a safe and solvent-free option for artists who want to explore the world of oil painting.

What Makes Winsor & Newton Artisan Water Mixable Oil Colour Unique?

Traditional oil paints require the use of noxious solvents such as turpentine, mineral spirits, or other volatile chemicals to thin the paints, clean brushes and for other clean-up operations. The Artisan Water Mixable Oil Colour range, however, is easily cleaned up with just water. This eliminates the need for hazardous solvents, reduces exposure to fumes, and ultimately makes this product a safer option.

Benefits of Winsor & Newton Artisan Water Mixable Oil Colour

The Artisan Water Mixable Oil Colour range is a great choice for those who share their workspace or work at home, where the smell of solvents might be a concern. Cleaning up paint equipment is also quick and easy, and artists simply require water and soap to clean paintbrushes, palettes, or any other tools.

Artisan Water Mixable Oil Colours match the standards of traditional oil colours with the same pigment rich content, opacity, texture, and consistency. The range features over 40 colours, and all are of the highest quality and offer excellent lightfastness. The paint dries to a lustrous finish, and the colours are easily blended together. This means that artists have the option to experiment with various colour combinations and techniques, making Winsor & Newton's Artisan Water Mixable Oil Colour an excellent alternative to traditional oil paints.

Winsor & Newton's oil paint ranges offer something for every artist, whether it's beginner or professional. Each range has its properties and benefits that cater to different preferences and artistic styles. Don't be afraid to experiment with different ranges until you find the one that works best for you. In the end, the most important thing is to have fun and create art that you're proud of using the best paint range for your style.