Gamblin 1980 Oils - PBr7 Burnt Umber; PBk9 Ivory Black

Gamblin’s approach is different. 1980 colours contain pure pigments, the finest refined linseed oil, and marble dust (calcium carbonate). Since oil painting began, these three ingredients have made more affordable colours.

Painters experience true colours without homogenized texture or muddy colour mixtures. Gamblin's approach to using traditional raw materials and processes ensures that artists experience the luscious working properties they expect from their oil colours.

Van Dyke Brown is the warmest Gamblin black. It has a good glazing colour and is useful for adding “gallery tone.” It's lightfast, permanent, and made from bone black and iron oxide.

PIGMENT COMPOSITION AND PERMANENCE

• Pigment Name: PBr7 Burnt Umber (iron oxides with manganese silicates or dioxide)
• Pigment Type: earth

PROPERTIES

Burnt Umber is a more intense reddish-brown pigment produced by heating Raw umber's clay pigment. It has medium to excellent tinting strength and high opacity, and it is quick drying in oil form. Burnt Umber is more transparent than Raw Umber.

It has excellent colour properties and can create a variety of subtle, clear tints when mixed with white.

It can tend towards chalkiness in dark oil mixes, but overall, it mixes well with other colours. To create a black colour in oil form, mix Burnt Umber with Phthalo Blue or Ultramarine. Mix it with Ultramarine or Payne's Gray to achieve a similar colour in watercolour form.

PERMANENCE

Burnt Umber has good permanence.

TOXICITY

Burnt Umber itself is considered non-toxic. If contaminated by manganese compounds, it may be highly toxic if inhaled and moderately toxic if ingested.

HISTORY

This pigment comes from the Latin word umbra, meaning shadow or shade. Its full name is terra di ombra, meaning earth of shadow/shade, due to its original extraction from Umbria, Italy. It has been used as a pigment since prehistoric times. Currently, the finest umber comes from Cyprus.

PIGMENT COMPOSITION AND PERMANENCE

• Pigment Name: PBk9 Ivory Black (Bone Black, Iron Oxide)
• Pigment Type: charred animal bone

PROPERTIES

Ivory Black is a cool, semi-transparent blue-black with a slight brownish undertone and average tinting strength. It mixes well with any colour and creates a range of dull greens when mixed with yellow. It has good properties for use in oil, can be slow to dry in oil form, and should never be used in underpainting or frescoing. Ivory Black is denser than Lamp Black.

PERMANENCE

Ivory Black is very lightfast and has good permanence, though it is considered the least permanent of the primary black pigments.

TOXICITY

Ivory Black has no significant hazards.

HISTORY

Ivory Black is a carbon-based black, first named Elephantium. It was described in the 4th century BCE as being produced by heating ivory scraps in clay pots to reduce the ivory or bone to charcoal.

The deviation in names is because the more expensive varieties of this pigment were made by burning ivory, and the less expensive ones by burning animal bones. In the 19th century, the name Ivory Black was finally permitted to be applied to Carbon Black pigments made from bone.

Genuine Ivory Black is rare in modern times due to the protection of ivory, and the synthetic variety produced today was discovered in 1929. Bone Black is created as an industrial pigment.