Gamblin Oil Mediums

Faithful to the imperatives of traditional material properties, but powered with Gamblin’s modern know-how, these oil mediums are safer to use and provide more permanent effects compared to the good old classic oil painting mediums. This series of Gamblin’s products offer the artists the capacity to extend their oil color range, freely create whatever they need, and reach the exact results that they are after. Gamblin cares about their customer community, and fully understands that “one size fits all” doesn’t work in the world of arts, so they have created these oil mediums to liberate artists and let them reach the desired finishing look like gloss or matte, visual qualities such as transparency, and physical properties such as paste stiffness or fluidity.

Gamblin’s Oil Mediums range includes the following products:

• Cold pressed linseed oil made out of Canadian flax seeds.
• Cold wax made out of natural white beeswax, alkyd resins, and odorless mineral spirits.
• Galkyd transparent alkyd resin gel.
• Galkyd slow drying medium.
• Galkyd lite oil color thinner that reduces the paste viscosity.
• Galkyd medium that increases the fluidity of the oil colors and speeds up their drying times.
• Gamsol mineral spirits for thinning oil colors, or cleaning the brushes.
• Poppy oil that is useful for “wet to wet” techniques.
• Neo Meglip that reduces viscosity and produces a luminous atmosphere.
• Refined linseed oil made out of American flax seeds for traditional painting.
• Safflower oil that gives a sparkling effect to white and lighter colors.
• Stand oil for wetting the heaviest of pigments.
• Wax pastilles for the creating custom wax.
• Solvents for higher transparency, more gloss, and better flow.

Medium Tips

I want to thin the paint

You may thin the paint by lowering its viscosity. This will increase the flow of the oil color and make the brush marks more apparent. To do this, use “Galkyd Lite” for a fast drying time, the “Galkyd Slow Dry” for a moderate drying time, and the “Poppy” or the “Refined Linseed Oil” for a slow drying time of up to five days.

I want to make the paint thicker

This means that you want to increase the viscosity of the paint, increasing its flow off the brush but introducing a “sticky” quality. This technique is suitable for when wanting to give an enamel-like appearance to the drawing. You may do this by using “Galkyd” for fast drying times, or “Stand Oil” for slower drying times.

I want to create thick “impasto” marks

This is a job for the Gel and Wax painting mediums that can extend your oil colors to the point that will allow you to create those marking effects. For fast one-day drying times, you can use the “Galkyd Gel”. For moderate dry times use the “Neo Megilp”, and for slow drying use the “Cold Wax Medium”.

I want to achieve a deep glazing effect

For a thin glaze layer, use “Galkyd Lite” or “Galkyd thinned” with “Gamsol mineral spirits”. For a thicker glaze layer, prefer the “Galkyd” in combination with the “Stand Oil” medium. In addition to these, you may also use the “Neo Meglip” gel medium that will produce an even thicker glaze that is suitable for a “wet to wet” technique.

Final Considerations

If you’re into oil painting, then you already know that without oil painting mediums there’s no way to achieve the required levels of precision needed for a perfect professional result. The use of oil mediums is essential in order to produce the desired color effects that are unique to each artist and his/her methodology. That said, every creator who uses oil paints must have at least some mediums handy. Which oil mediums must be present to each one’s “toolbox” can only be determined through extensive experimentation and practice. After all, oil paints are chemistry, in the sense that their mechanical properties (fluidity, viscosity) are directly related to their chemical properties, and these mediums were manufactured to allow artists the capability to “play” with their paints’ chemical composition.