As some of you may have noticed, we have been out of stock of our Venetian Red (PR 101) oil paint for almost six months. Unfortunately, sometimes our suppliers change the tone or quality of a pigment that we have been ordering for some time. When that happens, we work hard to find a new supply of pigment that meets our standards and ensures a continuity of color and consistency in our products.
Testing out PR 101 variants in the lab
It took us over a year, working collaboratively with our pigment chemist, Lalo, to find a new source of pigment for our Venetian Red. In October, we traveled to the factory in Mexico City to review the final options. We're excited to announce that we have finally found a new pigment that meets our quality standards and creates a paint that we can call Gapka Venetian Red. After a few trial batches Pablo says he likes working with this pigment better even if it's still one of the hardest paints to clean off the mill since it's so loaded with pigment.
Venetian Red pigment mixed with a little linseed oil during the first step of the paint making process
So why did it take so long?
Pigment suppliers wouldn't know what you were asking for if you tried to order "Venetian Red" pigment. Venetian Red is a name that was given to paints made with from the natural earth clay tinted with red iron oxide, from a quarry near Venice. As you can imagine, the color varied depending on where the clump of clay was dug up and how it was processed into paint. To this day, there is no standard for paint names and colors so each paint manufacturer can choose the opacity and appearance that they prefer for their Venetian Red.
Instead of Venetian Red, we need to ask for a PR 101 - synthetic iron oxide. But that request encompasses a range of iron oxide pigments with varying properties and appearances. In fact, our Red Oxide Transparent is also made with a PR 101. The reason they share the same code is that they are both red iron oxide-based pigments, and the code system doesn't differentiate between the specific variations within this category. It simply groups them based on their chemical composition. So to find the right one, we need to send a sample of our old pigment for the supplier to try to match.
Matching a pigment sample when in pigment form is difficult. But just matching them dry doesn't ensure that a new pigment will work. Because the color and consistency of oil paint can vary based on microscopic changes in pigment particle size, we actually need to mill the pigment and make paint before we know if it will actually work as a replacement.
Because of the difficulties in finding the perfect pigment and maintaining supplies over time some manufacturers will "cheat" and add fillers to homogenize the paint. If more of the paint is made of a consistent material it's easy not to notice variances in the pigment. This also has the benefit of reducing pigment loads and making the paint cheaper to manufacture.
We have made a commitment to providing paints that have high pigment loads and no fillers, so that's what we will do even if it can take a little more work to find the perfect replacement pigment for our colors.
Gapka Venetian Red oil paint is a beautiful deep red color with warm pink undertones; it is opaque but can be translucent when thinned with a little linseed oil as shown below.
Venetian Red on canvas paper blended with titanium-zinc white (left) and titanium white (right). Bottom of image shows Venetian Red mixed with linseed oil to show how it can go from opaque to more transparent