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Sennelier Rive Gauche
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Message
Posted
In the January edition of Leisure Painter there was a review of these new fast drying oil paints.
I purchased a set and tried them out on three small paintings. I worked with the paint straight from the tubes. The paints have about the same consistency out of the tube throughout the twelve colours provided in the set. They mixed well and the colour strength is reasonable on the palette. The paint has a good creamy consistency and applies well with a brush or palette knife. Drying time 48 hours. You can thin the paint with Liquin medium of diluent thinner which was proved with the set of twelve 40 ml tubes. Adding anything to these paints I can only imagine it would only weaken what strength they have. Rive Gauche oils are sold as artist quality paints. Although the write up in the Leisure Painter gave them a good report I have to say I found them lacking body and depth of colour. They dry to a flat looking appearance and rather dull from what I am usually used to painting with. I use a variety of oils. Put in a nutshell this oil paint does not have any punch to it.
As a result I am puzzled by the glowing reviews.
Picturethis is John Inkson
Posted
This was the Adrienne Parker review, which has also been published on the website?
I'm sure it's an honest review, but I don't believe that a range of colours which includes so many Hues - Cobalt, Cerulean, Cadmium Yellow among others - can be described as artists' quality paint. The writer says that Sennelier are proud of their Hue colours - well, they may be, but I'd like to know what's IN them, and wouldn't buy any Hue colour unless I had that information. If the Cobalt and Cerulean are basically Pthalo Blue, for example (and I bet they are) they will not have the subtlety that you seek, and probably won't have the strength either, since although Pthalo Blue is a very strong colour in full strength, when it's broken down in a generally futile attempt to match the genuine metallic pigments it can be extremely disappointing.
I've not tried Rive Gauche, and I don't use Sennelier products normally - have used their oil pastels in the past. I'm afraid it will take more than a review in LP (or any other publication) of the sort you've referred to - a sort of play with a new set of paints, producing what was at best an oil sketch - to persuade me to buy. A more thorough investigation of their properties, including some basic information about pigment numbers, would have been much more useful.
Posted
There is an article here under Tips and Techniques on the Home page, by Max Hale (which I know you've seen because you commented on it). It was more useful than the article by Adrienne Parker - but she wasn't able to identify the pigments in the Hue colours, as I would have liked, because the company itself doesn't list them. In itself this doesn't prove anything - they may be using pigments of their own invention - these may be recently developed pigments which have not yet received a pigment number: but .... how are we supposed to trust the claims of lightfastness? Some claims for the paint strike me as dubious, particularly that it yellows 'much less' than other oils, because they use Safflower oil rather than Linseed. Define 'much' - a word like that doesn't mean anything. And Linseed forms a stronger bond with the paint than Safflower Oil, not that Sennelier are alone in switching to it. They're said to dry faster - well, so do Alkyds, which, if I wanted a quick drying paint, I'd rather use. There's no indication of whether they use Zinc White in their colours - which I want to know. And they produce an Alizarin Crimson - the real thing? Don't know, though haven't looked because I wouldn't use it normally. Too little information all round, and most of what is offered as information is just sales pitch.
Not captivated!
Posted
This is a real problem, actually - I do understand that if you're given a batch of new paints you'll try to accentuate the positive: but quite honestly, I think that if you are given free paints you should still be brutally honest about them: I can't say that the artist in this case wasn't honest, because obviously I can't know; and anyway, there's nearly always something positive you can say in relation to any new product to come your way. The trouble is that the remarks are nearly always positive - whatever magazine you read. And - well - sorry POL and others, but I just don't think this is particularly honest. Relentless positivity is not a genuine guide to paints you might want to use: and I think reviews here and elsewhere should NOT be merely a re-run of the manufacturers' blurb. I believe this sales promotion should stop, even if the manufacturers support the magazines and website: I don't wish to part company with POL, but - it's really not honest, now is it?
Posted
A drying time of 48 hours seems too long for an oil paint claimed to be fast drying.
I used W & N Artisan Alkyd oil paints for many years, and the drying time was about 8 hours before it was touch dry. If I painted outside on a warm day with a bit of a breeze then the drying time was reduced to about 4 hours.
Nowadays I use W & N Artists oil paints. Drying time is about 3 days if I don't paint in impasto. I sometimes use alkyd Titanium White with the artists oils, and this speeds up the drying time.