Canadian made oil paint? Kama pigments

I stumbled on kama pigments oil paimt and it looks like they are made in Quebec, canada.



The price is amazing compared to other paint brands we can get here.  On par with the student line 1980, but from what I can tell, it's a professional quality brand, probably mid level professional which would put it somewhere near US-made M Graham (my current favourite) but more creamy and less runny.  Like M Graham, Kama uses walnut oil, so I am hopeful they also have a slow drying time.

That's all I know so far. But I want to know more, so a thread for gathering information about the brand with a view to making an order the next time I run out of yellow ochre.  I'm forever running out of yellow ochre, and a variation of the zorn palette seems to be a good way to judge a brand as the care they put into a cheap earth colour (or fail to put care into it) like yellow ochre, is a good mark of how the brand as a whole will behave.

Anyone paint with Kama before?  Or used some of their other art supplies?

Here are some beautiful images of their paint making process.



Having that much french in one go is bringing back trauma from my school days.  We are woefully terrible at being bilingual on the west coast.  I speak better Japanese than French.  Although reading French is easier.  This might be why I'm having so much trouble finding reviews on this paint.  Google is only returning English language results.

It looks like this video is too old for youtube to auto populate CC, but maybe if a few more people watch it, we can get some captions and I can read what he is saying.

Anyone up for the challenge?   Not sure if we can watch here or have to on youtube for it to work, but it usually takes only four or five people watching it to awaken the cc generator.

I wonder where the lightfastness for these paints is listed, or do we have to judge by pigment reputation?

I'm still firmly on my art supply no-buy so this is more a dream-list than what I plan to buy.  

The idea is to find paints that would give a representative sample of what the company is like while working with how I normally paint.  

yellow ochre of course.  Natural & synthetic iron oxide - Py 43, Py 42 are both well established as light fast pigments.

titanium white because it's a good indication of how the paint makers make their paint.  Also, I think a zorn-like palette would be a good place to start.  Titanium dioxide - Pw 6

Ivory black for the same reason as the white.  Tri-calcium phosphate - Pbk 9

naphthol red to complete the zorn palette.  pigment(s): Naphthol AS - Pr 170 (don't know the lightfastness of this yet).  

(They do have a vermillon version of naphthol, but it has a lot of pigments including zinc white.  I don't enjoy white being pre-mixed into my paints, so maybe not this one)

red ochre is one I've always wanted to try.  Synthetic iron oxide - Pr 101 is another well established lightfast pigment  

And I would get their two naples yellow because I'm curious what it's like.  

naples yellow light  Nickel Titanate, Synthetic hydrated iron oxide - Py 53, Py 42 (I don't know the lightfastness on these pigments)

naples yellow deep which interests me the most as it contains only  Chrome Titanate - PBr 24  (don't yet know the lightfastness on this pigment)


7 colours would get me to about $90CAD.  I think that qualifies for free shipping, but with tax, a hundred and something easy.  

The problem is, that's actually a very good price for professional grade paints.  Although, I wonder if I really need the black and white as I have a lot of that with other brands and am unlikely to run out.  

And thankfully, I'm on my no-buy so it's going to be a while before I can invest in something like this.  

The world is cruel.  Every time I've saved enough money up to place my order (and meet minimum for free shipping), something steels that money.

First, I suddenly needed a bunch of new socks as they were weirdly wearing out a hole in the ball of the foot.  Every socks for like two weeks ended the day with a hole in it.  

Then I needed new shoes because apparently they had a hole in the bottoms of the 15-year old shoes that were otherwise perfectly serviceable.  (and yes, it took two weeks to figure this out).

That sort of thing keeps getting in the way.  And to be open about it, I have enough paints for now.  The appeal comes wanting to test these paints BEFORE I need them.  That way I can know if they are a viable backup if I can't get my favourite.  

But it has given me time to change my mind on what colours I would get.  I've been looking at historical palettes and notice that red ochre is quite common.  And for some reason I keep using up ultramarine even though it's not my favourite.  But I figure so long as I get a yellow, blue, and red for the review, the rest can focus on colours I want to try or frequently run out.  So here's my current wish list.

red ochre

French ultramarine blue

spanish gold ochre - semi transparent yellow ochre!  Exciting!

naples yellow light and naples yellow deep

pyrrol red - because I want a deep red for the review and it's a pretty lightfast pigment.  

And asphaltum of course.  Because I've always wanted to try it.  Although, that is a lot of different pigments.  not sure how it's going to behave - but that's also part of the fun.

and I don't know if that gets me to the minimum for free shipping or not.  But I've got another month or so to save up - unless something else decides to fall apart.