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With a global shortage of paint and painting supplies, artists find it more difficult and expensive to obtain the pigments they want. As in other industries, since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, coating manufacturers around the world have been struggling to solve supply chain and personnel issues. But another preventable "force majeure" has brought the growing shortage of art supplies and rising prices to another level: the global extreme climate disaster.

In the face of increasing demand for paint, especially for construction and home improvement projects, the pandemic has caused labor shortages for factory workers and drivers, which has blocked the supply chain. To make matters worse, the February freeze in Texas slowed down the production of oil, which is a key ingredient in paint. This resulted in a shortage of the three most popular colors: Chantilly lace, triangle black and smoky green. A fire at BASF's polymer plant in Germany in March affected production during most of the summer in Europe. In Canada, due to the hot and dry weather, summer wildfires severely affected the flaxseed crops, causing the price of flaxseed oil to rise sharply.

"For art materials, the entire industry has been struggling with supply chain issues, from the supply of acrylic resins, the supply of linseed oil, additives, paints, bottles and tubes to the shortage of personnel caused by the pandemic," a Golden spokesperson said. Artist Color, a paint manufacturer based in New York, told Hyperallergic. “Some of these challenges are not caused by COVID but by natural and man-made disasters,” the spokesperson continued, adding that the confluence of these different factors created a “perfect storm”.

According to Golden, the pigment company has abandoned a full range of products, such as the "very popular" Quinacridone Golds and Browns. The company also pointed out that there is a shortage of blue pigments such as indanthrone blue and ultramarine blue that are in high demand.

A representative of the Dutch paint manufacturer Akzo Nobel reported in an interview with Bloomberg that a similar shortage of blue pigments has caused "complete chaos" in the industry.

"To make paint, you need 50 to 60 ingredients," a company spokesperson told Bloomberg. "Some additives are hard to get."

According to Bloomberg, the Dutch company is also facing difficulties in sourcing tinplate for the manufacture of metal cans, which has forced it to ship empty cans from other countries for filling. It also reported some supply chain issues for exterior wall coatings because the additives needed for waterproofing were not available.

According to Akzo Nobel’s third-quarter results, the cost of raw materials and other additives required to manufacture coatings has increased by more than 323 million U.S. dollars compared with 2020. As a result, the price of the company's products has soared 9% in the past year, Insider reports. 

Facing a similar shortage of raw materials, Ohio-based paint manufacturer Sherwin-Williams reminded investors in September that paint prices are expected to continue to rise in the coming months.

The company’s chief executive, John Morikis, said: “The ongoing industry-wide raw material supply restrictions and pricing inflation that we previously reported have worsened. We don’t expect the supply in the fourth quarter to improve or improve as expected. Reduce raw material prices." According to CNN, this is a call to investors.

Golden recently announced the transfer of 100% of the company's ownership to its employees, adding that COVID-related safety precautions in its facilities have also reduced its ability to meet customer needs.

The company said: "Due to close contact, childcare issues, or support from elderly parents, people have to stay home or be quarantined because of the new crown virus, so we have been dealing with manpower shortages." "All these factors have contributed to this. Productivity is low, even though all our employees have put in tremendous effort to work overtime for months to keep up."

Although it is expected that these long-standing supply chain problems will not improve in the near future, the company vowed to continue to attach importance to the safety of its employees while striving to "surmount the storm."

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