Introducing 24 New Gamblin Oil Colours (Artist Grade + 1980)
Why 24 new colours? What’s next?
Gamblin starts from a painter’s reality: we can discern millions of shades, but oil painting relies on fewer than 100 pigments that meet their standards—and those pigments don’t land evenly across colour space. The result is predictable: clusters of options in some areas, and wide gaps in others. Gamblin’s answer is to keep developing colours that “solve real problems for painters and create meaningful, new possibilities,” driven by years of insight from artists they work with closely, their own studio practices, and ongoing feedback.
That long-game commitment is one of the clearest points of difference we see with Gamblin compared to many oil paint brands: this isn’t trend-chasing or “new for new’s sake.” It’s colour development with a stated purpose—filling gaps, improving usability on the palette, and pushing possibilities without asking painters to compromise on professional standards.
How Gamblin wants you to evaluate these colours
Rather than relying on a single swatch, Gamblin shows each colour through three practical mixing references:
- Tint = Colour + Titanium Zinc White
- Tone = Colour + Portland Grey Medium
- Shade = Colour + Chromatic Black
This matters because it shows behaviour—how a colour shifts, holds temperature, and integrates into mixes—so you can choose based on how it will paint, not just how it looks from the tube.
New Gamblin Artist Grade Colours (13)
These additions broaden high-chroma options and expand practical mixing space—especially through greens and blues that painters can actually use in real subjects.
Coral
Gamblin describes Coral as a colour that “skirts the boundary between red and orange,” and they note there are many interpretations—from red-leaning to orange-leaning, deep to pale. Their Artist Grade Coral is positioned as the deeper, bolder take—aimed at those rare moments when nature shows up in full chroma (think sunrise/sunset fire, coral reefs, peony petals).
Radiant Warm Green
A high-chroma warm green option for when your greens need to feel lit—useful when you want intensity without dulling your mixes.
Radiant Orange
A direct, vivid orange for high-chroma passages—helpful when you want punch without overcomplicating a mix.
Azure
A sky-leaning blue option for open air, distance, and clean transitions—especially when you want clarity without heaviness.
Shell Pink
A softer, warm pink note—useful for skin temperature shifts, reflected light, and high-key highlights where white alone won’t do it.
Kings Blue
A saturated, classical-feeling blue in the lineup—handy when you want a confident blue statement colour on the palette.
Cobalt Turquoise
A turquoise bridge colour—useful when you’re moving between blue and green and want that sea-glass territory without fighting mixtures.
Sevres Blue
A refined blue option that reads controlled and painterly—useful for skies and atmospheric passages where you want nuance.
Alpine Blue-Green
A cooler blue-green direction—good for distance, mountain air, and those highland notes where greens lean blue.
Forest Floor Green
A grounded, earthy green direction—useful for shadowed greens, undergrowth, and warm, natural darks.
Bush Green
A practical mid-green—great as a starting point for mixing believable foliage without getting artificial.
Canopy Green
A lighter, warmer green direction—useful for sunlit leaves, warm greens in light, and spring-to-summer canopy colour.
Indigo
A deep mixer option—useful for building structured darks and shifting mixtures toward depth without immediately going neutral.
New Gamblin 1980 Colours (10)
Gamblin describes the 1980 range as “buttery texture,” “bold opacity,” and “vivid personality.” Some of these colours share names with Artist Grade (Kings Blue, Sevres Blue, Coral), but Gamblin makes a deliberate point of difference here: rather than replicating the flagship colour with a reduced pigment load, they chose to offer a different shade—“a paler and gentler interpretation”—by reducing the concentration of one pigment instead of reducing everything across the board.
That’s a meaningful distinction versus the common “student line = just weaker” approach you’ll see from many brands. Gamblin is telling you these 1980 colours were formulated intentionally, not merely diluted.
Hot Pink
Gamblin positions Hot Pink as part of their fluorescent set—made to “electrify your artwork and gallery walls on opening night.” They say these fluorescents “deliver maximum pigment load,” and note that with Hot Pink you’re getting Artist Grade levels of pigment concentration.
Hot Violet
The fluorescent counterpart in violet—also described as maximum-load and “not meant to sit quietly behind museum glass.” Gamblin says Hot Violet is also at Artist Grade pigment concentration levels.
Cool Violet
A cooler violet option for cleaner purples, shadow temperature, and controlled chroma shifts without muddiness.
Teal
A blue-green teal note—useful as a bold, direct colour when mixes keep collapsing into grey.
Coral
Gamblin describes 1980 Coral as “paler and gentler,” leaning toward a “sun-warmed, coral glow” rather than the full intensity of the Artist Grade version.
Cadmium Lemon
A bright, light yellow direction—useful for clean tints, high-key mixtures, and sharp temperature shifts.
Sevres Blue
A paler, gentler interpretation of the Artist Grade idea—useful when you want the character of the colour but in a softer register.
Kings Blue
A paler, gentler interpretation—useful when you want a strong blue identity without pushing maximum saturation.
Natural White
A warm-leaning white option for more natural, less stark mixtures—helpful when Titanium White feels too cold or too clean for the subject.
Denim
A muted blue direction—useful as a ready-to-go “real world” blue for worn fabric notes, quiet passages, and restrained colour statements.
Fast Dry Titanium White, now in 1980
Gamblin says 1980 Fast Dry Titanium White retains the working properties of traditional 1980 Titanium White, but will dry “a day or two quicker” by comparison. They state a dry time of 24 to 48 hours, about 12 hours behind their Artist Grade Fast Dry Titanium White, and twice as fast-drying as traditional 1980 Titanium White.
The benefit is straightforward: a faster white can keep you in the flow longer—more layering and mark-making opportunities without waiting on white passages to catch up.
Gamblin’s listed specifications:
- Pigment: PW6
- Vehicle: Safflower oil
- Lightfastness: I
- Series: 1
- Opacity: Opaque
- Colour temperature: Neutral
The trail doesn’t end here
Gamblin is explicit that they’re “nowhere near finished,” and that more colours are coming—colours intended to solve real painting problems and open up new possibilities. From our perspective at Opus, that’s exactly what we want from a paintmaker: a steady commitment to better colour tools, backed by craft, testing, and painter feedback—not just a larger wall of tubes.
