Why bother with pigments? That is a good question. Many people often wonder why an artist would want to go through the extra work of making paint from scratch. The answer is three-fold: value, quality and choices.

Value: when one considers the cost of a tube of paint, the price of the raw materials is far lower than the pre-made product. For example a good quality tube of cadmium paint costs around $40,-. A small bag of cadmium pigment is enough pigment for two normal sized tubes of paint. The average cost of the smallest quantity of our cadmium pigments is $20,-. So for half the cost of the tubed paint, one gets twice the amount of paint.

Quality: when paint makers prepare paints in tubes or cans, they are manufactured in such a way that the paint can sit on a shelf for a few years before the paint is sold and used. In this manufacturing process the quality of the paint is often compromised with the addition of stabilizing agents. Freshly prepared paint only contains pigment and binder, which yields a stronger color and is the highest quality paint possible.

Choices: all paint manufacturers make choices for the artists. They decide on a few options from the endless array of colors available. For example while most manufacturers offer one ultramarine blue, we offer three. While most paint makers offer one representation of the three cadmium shades (yellow, orange and red) we offer at least five options in each category. Paint manufacturers also reinterpret many of the classic colors and replace them with modern equivalents. For example, most of the naturally occurring colors such as ochre, sienna and umber have been replaced by modern iron oxides. These dull lifeless shades may imitate the natural hues of their namesakes, but they pale in comparison to the brilliance, nuance and variance which the natural earth pigments offer.

Sinopia opened a small store front in the Mission district of San Francisco in 1995. Paramount in this endeavor was to offer pigments to those who already understood the value of making paint from scratch and to introduce the infinite options of paint-making to artists who were unfamiliar with the craft. Three store fronts and many years later Sinopia is still committed to bringing the finest in raw materials to the ever-expanding clientele of artists and crafts-people.