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| Founded | 1987 |
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| Headquarters | , |
| Products | Paint |
| Website | www.finepaintsofeurope.com |
Fine Paints of Europe, located in Woodstock, Vermont, U.S., is the sole North American importer of paints and varnishes manufactured in the Netherlands by Wijzonol Bouwverven B.V.
When founded in 1987, most of the company's products were destined for application in the restoration of historic properties, primarily on the East Coast of the United States. Today, the company's products are sold for both commercial and residential application. Architectural Digest and Traditional Home magazines frequently feature Fine Paints of Europe products and colors. The company also exclusively sold oil based paint until the late 1990s, when they introduced the Eurolux water-based acrylic latex line and the Eco hybrid enamel line. Founder John Lahey's inspiration for starting Fine Paints of Europe can be traced back his travels to Europe (and the Netherlands in particular) in the mid 1980's where he found paint coatings of a standard and quality unavailable in North America. Their products can be purchased a participating paint dealers or directly from the company.
In 2013 John F. Lahey followed his father, the founder, as president of the company.
In recent years the company has developed and retailed premium paint palettes by the American designers Susan Sargent and Martha Stewart, and by Pantone. As sole licensee of Pantone Paints, the company offers a range of International color palettes including the Natural Color System, a 1,750 color palette developed by the Scandinavian Color Institute, and RAL, a color space system developed in 1927 by the Reichsausschuß für Lieferbedingungen und Gütesicherung (State Commission for Delivery Terms and Quality Assurance). The RAL color system has over 1,900 colors.
Since 2008 Fine Paints of Europe has conducted an Annual Painters Certification held near their Corporates offices in Woodstock, Vermont. The company maintains a list of certified painters on their website Certified Painters Fine Paints of Europe.
Acrylic paint is a fast-drying paint made of pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion and plasticizers, silicone oils, defoamers, stabilizers, or metal soaps. Most acrylic paints are water-based, but become water-resistant when dry. Depending on how much the paint is diluted with water, or modified with acrylic gels, mediums, or pastes, the finished acrylic painting can resemble a watercolor, a gouache, or an oil painting, or have its own unique characteristics not attainable with other media.
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel or copper for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of the world. The advantages of oil for painting images include "greater flexibility, richer and denser colour, the use of layers, and a wider range from light to dark". But the process is slower, especially when one layer of paint needs to be allowed to dry before another is applied.
Paint is a liquid pigment that, after applied to a solid material and allowed to dry, adds a film-like layer, in most cases to create an image, known as a painting. Paint can be made in many colors and types. Most paints are either oil-based or water-based, and each has distinct characteristics.
A pigment is a colored substance that is completely or nearly insoluble in water. In contrast, dyes are typically soluble, at least at some stage in their use. Generally dyes are often organic compounds whereas pigments are often inorganic compounds. Pigments of prehistoric and historic value include ochre, charcoal, and lapis lazuli.
Pantone LLC is an American limited liability company headquartered in Carlstadt, New Jersey. The company is best known for its Pantone Matching System (PMS), a proprietary color space used in a variety of industries, notably graphic design, fashion design, product design, printing, and manufacturing and supporting the management of color from design to production, in physical and digital formats, among coated and uncoated materials, cotton, polyester, nylon and plastics.
Watercolor or watercolour, also aquarelle, is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-based solution. Watercolor refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork. Aquarelles painted with water-soluble colored ink instead of modern water colors are called aquarellum atramento by experts. However, this term has now tended to pass out of use.
In offset printing, a spot color or solid color is any color generated by an ink that is printed using a single run, whereas a process color is produced by printing a series of dots of different colors.
Figure painting, or miniature painting, is the hobby of painting miniature figures and/or model figures, either as a standalone activity or as a part of another activity that uses models, such as role-playing games, wargames, or military modeling.
Safety orange is a hue used to set objects apart from their surroundings, particularly in complementary contrast to the azure color of the sky. The high-visibility color is commonly used for hunting during the rifle season, and is also used for upland-bird hunting. Places such as construction sites use this orange to help ensure the safety of others.
The International Colour Authority (ICA) is a private organization publishing forecasts about colour trends for the coming seasons, to be used by industry designers. It also awards a Seal of Approval that companies may display in their promotional materials if the colour ranges they use are appraised by the ICA.
Varieties of the color green may differ in hue, chroma or lightness, or in two or three of these qualities. Variations in value are also called tints and shades, a tint being a green or other hue mixed with white, a shade being mixed with black. A large selection of these various colors is shown below.
Historic paint analysis, or architectural paint research, is the scientific analysis of a broad range of architectural finishes, and is primarily used to determine the color and behavior of surface finishes at any given point in time. This helps us to understand the building's structural history and how its appearance has changed over time.
Varieties of the color red may differ in hue, chroma or lightness, or in two or three of these qualities. Variations in value are also called tints and shades, a tint being a red or other hue mixed with white, a shade being mixed with black. A large selection of these various colors are shown below.
A color chart or color reference card is a flat, physical object that has many different color samples present. They can be available as a single-page chart, or in the form of swatchbooks or color-matching fans.
KEIMFARBEN GMBH is a medium-sized company based in Diedorf near Augsburg. It belongs to the Leonhard Moll AG Group and is one of the world's leading manufacturers of silicate paints. Buildings such as the White House, Mariinskyi Palace, Buckingham Palace, Sydney Opera House, and the Bolshoi Theatre are painted with Keimfarben paints.
Paint is a recyclable item. Latex paint is collected at collection facilities in many countries and shipped to paint-recycling facilities.
MetroPaint is a recycled-content latex paint (RCLP) that has been produced in Portland, Oregon, United States by Metro since 1992.
Shades of black are colors that differ only slightly from pure black. These colors have a low lightness. From a photometric point of view, a color which differs slightly from black always has low relative luminance. Variations of black include what are commonly termed off-black colors, which may be considered part of a neutral color scheme, usually in interior design as a part of a background for brighter colors. Black and dark gray colors are powerful accent colors that suggest weight, dignity, formality, and solemnity.
Paint mixing is the practice of mixing components or colors of paint to combine them into a working material and achieve a desired hue. The components that go into paint mixing depend on the function of the product sought to be produced. For example, a painter of portraits or scenery on a canvas may be seeking delicate hues and subtle gradiations, while the painter of a house may be more concerned with durability and consistency of colors in paints presented to customers, and the painter of a bridge or a ship may have the weatherability of the paint as their primary concern.
Old Holland is a company based in the Netherlands, that manufactures high-quality painting supplies. Founded in 1664, the company continues the heritage of Old Dutch Masters, making products that include: oil paint, watercolor paint, acrylic paint, auxiliaries, and pigments.