Tag: art supplies

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Community Enthusiast Professionals This just in! New products we are excited about

In the store this week: a list of orders that have arrived at Wet Paint

Waiting on a special item that we ordered for you? Or just like to know when we get in your favorite brand of ink?  Here is a list that we will update weekly to keep you in-the-know!

Looking for a specific item? Call the store 651-698-6431

Week of March 28th:

Decomposition Sketch Books -Coilbound (new style) and Tape Bound (We’ve had a few tape bound books before)
7.5” X 9.75” & 4” X 6” (in limited styles) Now in several new cover designs! These books are made with 100% PCW recycled pages and are printed with soy ink. The coilbound book features micro-perforated pages.

New Custom Schmincke Watercolor Set #74745097

New Croquis Books and Pads from Holbein –Darin’s pick fave new sketchbooks
Spiral bound neutral pH Paper, Featuring some dapper drawings of animals, nature, and even a gesso hot tub!

Custom Sketch books from Global- Artwork by LMNOP Art

Shinola Journals- Both hard bound linen, soft bound linen, and paperback books of varying sizes and colors, consisting of pages of 60lb paper and an expandable pocket.

More new things from Global:New colors of the Pastel Premier* paper in both 26×20 sheets and 9×12 pochettes. This is a sanded pastel paper, double primed 145 lb sheet; now available in Terracotta, Buff, and Slate. Drawing 160 Pads Ideal for all dry media, pen and ink, and light washes. 100lb paper and 24 sheets per pad.

*Great replacement for Wallis Pastel Paper!

Week of Sept. 14th:

-Handbook Journals

-Rives BFK

-Wax Seals

-Logan Mat Cutters

 

Week of Sept. 7th:

-Japanese Nibs

-Platinum Carbon Pen

-Noodler’s Ink (select colors)

-R&F Encaustic and Pigment Sticks

-Coloring Books for Adults from Clairefontaine

-Prat Flexbooks

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Community Enthusiast Events at Wet Paint Professionals Students

Wet Paint’s 2nd Annual Summer Postcard Project

Going somewhere fun this summer? Or, having a productive stay-cation? Draw, paint, or mix up your media on a postcard-sized paper and mail it to Wet Paint! We’re putting together an exhibition of mail art from our friends and fans wherever they may be. As postcards arrive, we will photograph them to share on our social media pages and then display them in our storefront windows. At the end of the summer, we’ll host a public art opening here at Wet Paint for all of the contributing artists!

postcardimage15There’s no limit to how many postcards you can send, but in order to participate, postcards have to arrive at Wet Paint via our friendly postal carrier – – no dropping them off at the store! Don’t forget to sign your postcard(s) and let us know how to reach you. We want to make sure we’re crediting you when we post the work online and we want to be able to contact you with details about the end of summer art opening on August 29th.
General Guidelines:
-We are a family-friendly shop, so please tailor your images & words to be suitable for viewers of all ages.
-We reserve the right to not display postcards that we feel are inappropriate for this activity.
-All artwork must be original.
-In order to have your postcard displayed in our end of summer exhibition, you’ll need to have it postmarked by August 21st, 2015.
-All participating mail art must arrive at Wet Paint via US Mail.
-Keep in mind that postcards will “wear” a bit depending on how far they travel- which is part of the fun of mail art!
-Contact your local post office for shipping and postage information.
-Send one or send one every week! We’ve got big windows!

Note: If you are willing, Wet Paint will be up-cycling the postcards (mounting on Strathmore cards) to then donate to Women’s Advocates.  Please let us know if you DO NOT want your postcard donated.
More info about the end of summer exhibition and opening on August 29th to follow.

Wet Paint Address:

Wet Paint
Summer Postcard Project
1684 Grand Ave
St. Paul, MN 55105

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Community Enthusiast Events at Wet Paint Professionals

Wet Paint loves Josh & Carl

Painting along Northshore by NeilWe got Don Colley packed up and shipped out on the AMTRAK this morning and we are already changing gears at Wet Paint.  We’ve got a 2fer this Thursday evening.  We truly believe the weather is taking a turn toward warmth and Josh Cunningham and Carl Judson will be outside the store in full plein air regalia.  Josh Cunningham is a favorite Wet Paint customer, a well-respected painter of our Minnesota landscape and cityscape and a truly generous artist.  Josh will be working on a new painting and is ready and willing to talk shop about painting, materials and the specific issues of alla prima with any and all of you interested artists.

carlWhen I saw Carl Judson, founder of Guerrilla Painter, at the art materials show earlier this month, Carl said he could stop by Wet Paint on his road trip back to Colorado.  We lucked out to get him to come through St Paul on the same day as Josh’s demo.  So besides getting to talk with Josh about painting, you get to visit with Carl about the equipment he manufactures to make plein air painting more seamless and compact for the artist.  The last time Carl came by we had a lively conversation about collapsible palettes.  See a demonstration of all the bells and whistles of the Guerrilla Painter line of rugged pochade like boxes.

This is also a great opportunity for you to get Judson’s recent publication, “A Guerrilla Painter’s Notebook III.”  This volume covers such topics as the underappreciated role of the amateur painter, Judson’s own paintings, Judson’s monograph of a favorite artist, Julian Livingston Peabody, and high points of his guerrilla painter travels around the country.  This is a gem of a publication and shows Carl’s talents and appreciations as a true Renaissance individual.

This will be a truly delightful evening with Josh and Carl talking about topics they hold dear.  Their talents and generosity of spirit will inspire and encourage you to start a new picture.  Maybe we can get Josh to paint the front of Wet Paint (he has done the parking lot view; the painting is on view at the store).  Take a look at the new value added Guerrilla Box special kits.  It’s only available in brick and mortar art supply stores.

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Community Enthusiast Events at Wet Paint Professionals

Graham on Graham – A Winning Combination

gregheadshot
Greg Graham

If you’ve been a customer of Wet Paint over the past twenty years, you know Greg Graham.  Greg came to Wet Paint from New York State via graduate school in printmaking and sales training in the shoe business as well as Arlene’s Artist materials in Albany.  After all these years of Minnesota nice, Greg maintains his New York edge. Many of you get his personalized attention and advice during your regular visits to Wet Paint.  Tonight we put Greg in the spotlight when he will actually demonstrate his painting techniques using one of Wet Paint’s quality lines of acrylic paint.

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Art Graham

Art Graham got out of art school and learned the art of paint making from the masters in New York City at Grumbacher during that brand’s heyday.  After too many years of big city living and corporate art materials company buyouts, Art moved to Oregon and built his own paint company, M. Graham.  In facilities not much bigger than a three car garage, Art, his partner Diana and a tiny staff, produce watercolor, gouache, oil and acrylic.  He keeps his product lines short and sweet, just doing it his way.  I am always surprised that the big companies in art materials never recognize the quality of Graham’s paints.  In blind testing, his colors repeatedly equal if not surpass the category leaders.

Ignore tonight’s weather and come over to Wet Paint and see Greg Graham’s painting demonstration with Art Graham’s paint.  It is a winning combination.

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Community Enthusiast Students

Fluorescent Colors

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Justin outside brightening up a grey March day

It seems like not too long ago fluorescent colors were a big no-no in the art world and art materials industry.  There was no way you could make those colors be eye-popping and archival at the same time.  But now, the concern over light-fastness seems to have been beat out by the popularity of hot fluorescents.  Nearly every country participating in this year’s Winter Olympics donned fluorescent accented gear. In these grey days of the never ending winter, joggers along Summit Avenue light up my day not just with their athletic determination to weather the weather, but their fuchsia and chartreuse shoes, mittens and ear warmers.  It seems that there is life out there and it isn’t all bleak.

neon 003With the need for some sun scorching color, let’s throw archival concerns into its own corner for the moment.  Let’s embrace Golden’s High Flow Acrylics in fluorescents (duly noted “Lightfastness Poor” on the label), and Sakura’s new Gelly Roll Moonlight fine point pens, and Faber Castell’s soon to be released fluorescent Pitt Pens and Speedball’s new fluorescent & Night Glo screen and block printing inks.  And let’s not forget the fluorescent paint markers from Montana and Molotow, the neon Sharpies and the Bistro Chalk Ink markers as well as the UV-reactive, professional grade, Irojiten colored pencils from Tombow.  With all these neon marks, we could generate enough heat to melt this ice jam and have art spring us into the next season.

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Community Enthusiast Events at Wet Paint Professionals

Spring Classes at Wet Paint

Wet Paint has two definite camps of customers, one of learners and one of teachers.  There is a regular quest for classes and demos from those who hunger for more knowledge.  I believe it is the nature of many artists to be on a continuous path of learning.  At the same time there are artists who are so enthusiastic and passionate about their art that they cannot contain themselves from sharing their knowledge and experience.   I believe for many, being a teacher is synonymous with being an artist.  Wet Paint is a perfect place to introduce these two camps to each other and we are actively experimenting with different formats where these creative individuals intersect.

ioanastoianWe are fortunate to bring Ioana Stoian to Wet Paint for two origami workshops.  Ioana’s passion is paper and folding.  A professional and an active member of the International Association of Hand Papermakers and Paper artists, Stoian has written a book, Origami for All, Elegant Designs from Simple Folds, which contains her own original origami designs.  Each workshop has unique seasonal designs which you will learn from a master yet requires no previous experience.  We are trying out some new time slots on these classes, one on Tuesday evening, March 25th and one on Wednesday morning on April 16th.

wetpaintclassesJoyce Francis needs no introduction.  A master calligrapher in search of new artistic outlets, Joyce found the art of contemplative patterning, Zentangle, to be her new passion.  We have had other Zentangle workshops with Joyce and the participants always ask for more.  We have two sessions of the same class coming up on Saturday, March 22.  No experience required.

These classes at Wet Paint are all hands-on 2 hour workshops.  Materials are included and you will have a finished project at the end of the class.  There are workshop fees and registration is required.  You can sign up online, by phone or in person.  If classes don’t meet a minimum enrollment 3 days before the session begins, the class will be cancelled and your class fee will be refunded.

Special offer through March 16

If you sign up for one of these 4 classes over this weekend, you will receive a coupon to be used on a future purchase at Wet Paint. Click here to go to our Events page.

Wet Paint At Large

yumingzhuOver the past few years we have helped bring Sumi-e artist and teacher Yuming Zhu to the Twin Cities.  His following is so great we need to partner with other members of our creative community who have more space.  This April, Yuming is not only teaching a 2 day Sumi-e Painting workshop at Bloomington Theatre and Art Center (BTAC), he will also lecture to accompany an exhibit of his artwork at the Eagan Community Center.

Plus Yuming is offering a unique class on Mounting Techniques for Sumi-e Art on Monday, April 14th, at BTAC.  Many artists who have studied with Yuming have asked for training on this specific sumi-e technique of traditional wet mounting.  This is an intermediate to experienced class, focused on those with a sumi-e and/or framing background.  This is a unique opportunity to get hands-on experience at a master’s side.

The programs at BTAC and Eagan require registration through those respective venues.

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Community Enthusiast Events at Wet Paint Professionals

Enkaustikos, a New Wax Cycle

As art movements wax and wane between figurative and landscape, realism and abstraction, the popularity of mediums change with the era too.  Encaustic, the art of painting with wax, is one of the oldest techniques, dating back to antiquity.  Anyone sitting through a required history and techniques class in college touched on the subject.  In the second half of the 20th century, there were diverse individual artists who picked up the process such as Jasper Johns and Brice Marden.  Until recently, dipping into encaustics meant reading recipes, acquiring the raw materials and manufacturing your own color and mediums.

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Kathryn Bevier monoprint using Enkaustikos paints

As we approached the end of the 20th century, a few art materials manufacturers came up with formulas to create “readymade” encaustic colors and mediums so artists could spend their time making art rather than making paint.  One of these companies, Enkaustikos, has taken the block of colored wax a few steps further.  They looked at the block of wax that artists put into a metal pot on their heated surface to melt and decided to sell their color in shoe polish sized tins to eliminate this step in the process.  Since then they have pressed their wax paint into “Sticks” and “Snaps,” giving the artist smaller increments for using colored wax and also giving them wax shapes to use like drawing materials.  They have taken some of the oldest art materials and reshaped them to meet contemporary artists’ needs.

Hot-Sticks-MonoprintingSome of these developments have turned into great materials to use encaustic techniques in monoprinting.  Printmaking has also experienced resurgence recently.  The marrying of these two techniques reflects the current movement of mixed media art making.

We want you to experience encaustic and encaustic monoprinting for yourself.  Join Kathryn Bevier from Enkaustikos this Saturday, January 18th, at Wet Paint.  Kathryn not only works as an encaustic artist but is involved in the manufacturing of the Enkaustikos product line.  This is a great opportunity to try out something new and ask a bunch of questions of a true expert in the field.

Click here for details and sign up for this demo.

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Community Enthusiast Events at Wet Paint Professionals

Winter Thaw at Wet Paint

bcutts11Mother Nature has given us a nasty New Year’s gift of sub-zero weather.  It is over and we do hope you get out of the house and studio and come and see us at Wet Paint.  We will be heating it up more than usual this Saturday with our friend Bonnie Cutts.  Bonnie is our regional working artist for Golden Artist Colors and she can raise the temp on your artistic flow through her creativity, enthusiasm and product knowledge.  Bonnie will demonstrate Golden Artist’s Colors newest product line, High Flow Acrylics.

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Beth’s doodle with High Flow in a paint marker (yes, that is Bonnie’s picture)

Golden looks at how artists use paint today and formulate their lines to better meet their demands.  They took a limited market product in their airbrush color and transformed it into High Flow so it can be used with airbrush, empty paint markers, technical pens, as well as your more traditional painting tools.

If you’re a seasoned Golden Artist Color enthusiast, you probably wonder what the difference is between High Flow and Fluid.  Bonnie will not just answer that question but let you test the product side by side along with its application to different acrylic grounds.

Darin, Wet Paint’s General Manager, considers Golden’ s High Flow to be one of the hot products of 2013. I just loaded an empty paint marker with some High Flow and it’s quite a bit of drawing fun.

Get those artist juices flowing again.

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Community Enthusiast News & Media Professionals

Wet Paint loves Holly Swift’s New Show at Mac

When you’ve had too much of the seasonal  events get yourself over to see Holly Newton Swift’s exhibit at Macalester College.  It’s a 2 block walk from Wet Paint and worth every step no matter what the weather.

The show includes sketches and fully executed works both in drawing and painting.  Swift studies the landscape and its trees, branches, boulders, water and snow and thoroughly investigates her materials, charcoals and oils, with the same depth.  Her understanding of  subject and materials masterfully comes together in compositions that reinforce both.   She makes the most amazing colors zing out of a palette of greys.

This is another show that confirms Macalester has built a quality space in their newly renovated Law Warschaw Gallery, Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center.  Swift’s paintings just sing in this gallery.  It feels museum-like yet  intimate with soaring ceilings that  never seem to dwarf the art on display.  Its greatest downfall as a college gallery is their limited hours.  Check before you go.  (They will be closed this Thursday and Friday for the Thanksgiving holiday but open Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4. )

You can have another view of Holly Swift’s work through Kristen Lowe’s film “Painting the Place Between.”  Swift along with Betsey Byers, Jil Evans and Andrew Wykes are the four featured landscape painters in the film that will debut at the Fitzgerald Theatre in Saint Paul on December 6th.We have tickets for sale at Wet Paint for this screening.

Woodlands and Waterfalls  by Holly Newton Swift is on display until December 15th

Law Warschaw Gallery

website: macalester.edu/gallery

email: gallery@macalester.edu

phone: 651-696-6416

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Enthusiast Professionals Students

Why Wet Paint Stocks Aerosols and Paint Markers

8E8C1934smSometimes when I look around Wet Paint I am surprised at what products have emerged over the past decade as serious artists’ materials.  I never expected to be selling aerosols.  I never imagined professionals choosing paint markers over a tube of paint.  And like earlier movements in contemporary art, artists’ influences today come from outside the traditional educational venues and with them come different materials.  And in our quick response culture, art materials manufacturers have been able to take commercial technology and marry with fine art material attributes.  So we have spray paint and paint markers that have artist palettes of colors.  They have made the colors more light fast and permanent.  They have altered viscosity to move the colors faster or slower.

8E8C2931smOne thing that makes paint markers and aerosols alike is that they have built in delivery systems.  You no longer need a brush.  While I personally find brushes to be the most beautiful of all art supplies, they are that additional step between the artist and the art.  I believe this immediacy and directness is why these “new” paint mediums are so popular with painters and sculptors and printmakers and calligraphers and artists of every persuasion.