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Flake white for sale - Grumbacher pre-tested Artists Oil tube
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Message
Posted
I have a used, vintage, Grumbacher pre-tested Artist’s 150 ml tube of Flake White oil paint which is about half full. See images below. I’m willing to post it anywhere in the UK. Or you can collect it from Kent. I bought it about two years ago intending to give it a go but I’m just a big scaredy-cat. It’s still squishy by the way.
j
jEdited
by Sauge King
Posted
Well, you CAN get several different lead whites - particularly if you're in the USA, but they're still available, with difficulty and at considerable expense, in much of Europe, and here in the UK: though you have to jump several bureaucratic hurdles. You certainly won't find it in an art store these days.
Far be it from me to suggest that £50 for a half-noshed tube is a bit hopeful on your part - even so, if you don't ask, you don't get: and there's a good few paintings to be done from that quantity of paint. I think I've cornered enough lead white to last me until the point at which the brush falls from my cold, dead hand, so I won't bite this time.
PS - it's mad: you can buy paint with mercury in it, but face all sorts of problems getting hold of lead paint, on which the whole of classical painting in Europe was built. We're fortunate at least that the authorities have so far left us with other metal-based pigments.... at the moment.
Posted
By the way, when you say you're a big scaredy cat - do you mean that you hesitate to plunge into oil painting, or that you're nervous about using a lead white?
If it's the latter - I've been using lead white for years, and look at me..... actually no, probably don't... No, that won't help... But: you don't need to be afraid of using it yourself; nearly all the dangers associated with lead lie in its production, not its use (and in some countries, that danger was real because it was allowed to seep into the water and earth: children, in particular, suffered badly from irresponsible industrial use and poor or non-existent environmental safeguards). Old master painters, who may have suffered from lead poisoning, made their own paint, and inhaled particles from the process: though it's notable that a good many of the old fellers lived a long, long time - because they knew what they were doing.
For the actual user, the danger is immeasurably less than using domestic cleaning products - you can't inhale it, don't eat in the studio if you have painty hands - you can always wear gloves - and try not to get it into open cuts (what would you be doing blithely sloshing away with paint if your hands were covered in wounds, though?). Avoid sanding it - because that releases particles which can be inhaled - or use an effective mask while doing so. And you can live as long as Titian, who lived for around 90 years and only died when he caught the plague.
Posted
Excellent Robert… I used Flake white, the lead stuff pretty much every day for five years at college, and we didn’t take any particular precautions either, because we were oblivious to any issues with it back in the 60’s.
Used sensibly there shouldn’t be any issues, my advice would be to get it out of the tube and down on canvas where it belongs!
Posted
@ Robert Jones
I know £50 sounds a lot, but it is half of 150 mil tube and because of its scarcity and that you can’t buy it anymore I thought that was a reasonable. A 60ml tube of Michael Harding Cadmium Red will cost you over £40. There’s at least 75 mil in my tube of flake white. But I didn’t/don’t mean to offend anyone.
When I say I’m a scaredy-cat it is because I’m frightened of the idea that I’ll do something stupid like lick my fingers or the paintbrush or something like that, because I do those sorts of things without thinking. It’s currently wrapped up in not one or two, but four plastic bags. That’s how big of a scaredy cat I am.
Poor Titian btw.
Posted
If you can’t use it, then why not donate it to one of your fellow artists… because you’re unlikely to sell it - and you’ll feel good about it!
I’ve donated a lot of used and brand new artists materials to artists on this site, (some I’ve bought, some sent to me by companies to help in my features for The Artist magazine), including Robert as I recall, who I know was very appreciative.
Posted
I was indeed appreciative - lovely brushes! Alan Owen, watercolourist of some repute, also sent me various materials over the years - he'll be over 90 now, if still with us; I hope he is, and wonder if anyone knows? Donating or exchanging materials is something a lot of us do - I know you'd rather have the cash, but....... it's a thought.
SK - you're worried you might lick your fingers? It probably wouldn't kill you even if you did, but come now - a little self-control there! You're not supposed to tuck into the stuff, whether lead white or anything else - take yourself in hand: stoppit!
I wasn't shocked by the price you quoted, I just thought you wouldn't succeed in getting it - you probably can't advertise it on Etsy or Ebay, because lead paint is prohibited from general sale: which doesn't mean you can't get it from a small number of companies. So I see the problem in offering it for sale elsewhere - maybe you'd be more fortunate if you tried it on Facebook; particularly if you cunningly forebore to mention the 'lead' word; just called it Grumbacher's Flake white.
I would have gone for it even at that price but for the fact that it contains an element - and we don't know how much - of PW4, Zinc Oxide; many lead whites did when this one was made; a lot of Titanium whites still do; I avoid it whenever I can.
Your point about Cadmium red's price is of course all too true - it's fiendishly expensive these days; although probably one won't use much of it, so if it's available in smaller tubes at less cost, I'd go for that. It's the earth colours I tend to run out of - though am bracing myself for the possible purchase of Cadmium Lemon - which would almost certainly last me for the rest of my life: and that's the way we're going to have to think of these metal-based paints; not casual purchases, but investments in one's work, and a justification for one's prices.
Posted
Dear Robert and Alan,
Thank you for your input. I will take it into consideration to donate it. I’ve really appreciated your replies to my post. And especially Robert, you have entertained me greatly with your wonderful, eloquent writing. (You should write a book 😊).
Please could both of you point me in the direction where I can view your work. I would love to see what you both do.
Posted
Dear Robert and Alan,
Thank you for your input. I will take it into consideration to donate it. I’ve really appreciated your replies to my post. And especially Robert, you have entertained me greatly with your wonderful, eloquent writing. (You should write a book 😊).
Please could both of you point me in the direction where I can view your work. I would love to see what you both do.
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