Tag: Liz Carlson

Why Wet Paint loves Gil

Post author By Wet Paint
Post date October 18, 2013

Nearly 30 years ago I met Gil. Gil was selling art supplies at a store in Berkeley. Next time I saw Gil, he owned an art supply store in Palo Alto. Both of us being independent art supply retailers meant we had a lot in common. What we didn’t have in common, we have in a friendly way, argued about over the years. Gil likes to travel and spends lots of time in Europe. And during those trips, he has found some great art supply lines that no one was importing into the United States. So we share our retailer woes together plus Wet Paint buys Gil’s Kunst & Papier books and Fibonacci brushes.

Justin with his Kunst & Papier sketchbooks

Kunst & Papier is a German line of sketchbooks and journals. They were designed by an artist because he couldn’t find a sketchbook to meet his own needs. The Wet Paint staff heartily endorses this line through their own personal use of the product. All of the sketchbooks are made with beautiful, quality paper. They respond to a variety of media and of different artists’ touch very well. The binderboard sketchbooks are their signature line. With a highly flexible spine these books have a great lay flat quality. No more using the side of your palm to hold the rolling paper flat. With plain bookboard covers, they are plain and simple in appearance which then can become the substrate for the artist to personalize. Newbie at Wet Paint, Chris, likes the subdued appearance which you can “make your own without defacing the book.” Both Liz and Justin rely on Kunst & Papier because their books are so well made they “wear well” and hold up to hauling them around with you. Even K&P’s simplest soft-covered sketchbooks that have few sheets and staple binding meet the discerning eye of Virginia who applies a wide range of media to their pages. Everyone feels they are just the most esthetically pleasing line of books, to the eye and to the touch. They look good. They have a wide variety of sizes. They have great paper. They are well constructed.

A few years back Gil visited Wet Paint with the Fibonacci line of brushes he found during his travels. The jaded Wet Paint staff, who have seen and tried just about every brush currently made, all wanted their own Fibonacci brushes. Beautifully crafted with synthetic blended heads in a vast assortment of sizes and shapes for water media. So what’s with another line of brushes? Liz likes the comfortable, well balanced handles. Verra likes the great snap of the hair. Justin likes the fact they hold their point for a very long time. Steve likes the crispness of the lines they make. Another esthetically pleasing, well-crafted tool.

When you handle lots of art materials, you just know when you pick up the good ones. These are them.

Tags art supplies, Chris Nolt, creativity, Fibonacci Brushes, Justin Terlecki, Kunst & Papier, Liz Carlson, Wet Paint St. Paul

Professionals Students This just in! New products we are excited about

The Story of the Schmincke Half-Pan Set

Post author By Wet Paint
Post date June 5, 2013
1 Comment on The Story of the Schmincke Half-Pan Set

Schmincke set color comparison: old set colors on left, new set colors on right

Editor’s note: Since 2013 we’ve done a series of custom sets and the current can be found here.

If you have shopped at Wet Paint in Saint Paul during the past 25 years, you know Darin Rinne, our General Manager. And you know Darin loves to tell a story. And I’d bet he’d tell you his favorite story is about the Schmincke Half-pan Watercolor Set. About 10 years ago, the U.S. importer of Schmincke color offered Wet Paint a deal on their 12 color half-pan set. We could give our customers a professional grade watercolor in a metal box at a comparable price to the competitor’s student grade in plastic. The only hitch, we had to purchase 100 sets. At the time, it was a big investment for Wet Paint, but we went for it anyway. The set was such a success; we ordered the set 3 times. Each time, the tin was a slightly different model. The fourth time around, no more were available.

The story continues and now Schmincke has a new importer in the U.S. but no watercolor set we felt met the criteria for our customers. Marcus from Schmincke in Germany came to visit us in 2011 and asked how he could improve their relationship with Wet Paint. Darin and Greg Graham, our Floor Manager, worked with Marcus to put together a selection of warm and cool colors of their choosing which would be affordable and still a workable palette. They found an appropriate tin with space to fit another 6 colors for expansion. We worked with other independent art supply stores to meet the manufacturer’s custom run commitment. The set was so well received by our customers, that we needed to order more custom runs. And we worked again with Marcus to develop a Schmincke Gouache set to complement the watercolors with a palette selected by our friend Roz Stendahl.

As we started seeing the end of our inventory, Schmincke informed us our tin was no longer available. Being such a successful program, Marcus and Darin worked up a 2013 edition which just got shipped to Wet Paint last week.

Liz Carlson holding the 2013 set and her color chart

Liz Carlson, urban sketcher and Wet Paint sales associate, got into the act by creating a new palette of colors for the new edition. The colors in the 2013 set are more transparent than the original selection. It is a stand-alone palette of colors but has no duplication from the original selection. The new tin is a longer box that has enough room to hold a standard length brush (or a pen) or 2 travel brushes. And it comes with 12 empty half-pans. So a painter could include the colors from their studio palette, include the colors from the original Schmincke Half-Pan Set or expand their palette in a completely unique way.

The new 2013 Schmincke Half-pan Watercolor Set!

Kate Katzer, Wet Paint’s framer and web sales associate, is very excited, almost giddy in fact, about the new Schmincke Half-Pan Set’s arrival. She has a number of web customers disappointed they missed the original set. She likes the fact that the palette of colors is chosen by a working artist rather than a marketing department. Liz Carlson’s color selection is appropriate for the plein air painter, the sketcher, landscape painter or portrait artist. The colors are for warm weather, vibrant and fresh. There is a story behind each color selection. For example, Liz picked Mountain Blue because “it isn’t as bossy as Ultramarine.” She likes Cobalt Turquoise and Transparent Orange because they mix well to make great middle tones.

Wet Paint is pleased to offer our customers the 2013 edition of the Schmincke Half-Pan Watercolor Set. Schmincke makes the best half-pan watercolors on the market. We have made a unique color selection you won’t find anywhere else. This set is priced ridiculously well. And the box wraps it all up as a beautiful object in itself. This is a watercolor set for those with great taste and an understanding of value & quality. We have worked hard to bring you a unique, professional grade product at a very affordable price. Visit our website to purchase and see the entire list of colors in this set!

Tags exclusive watercolor set, Half-pan watercolors, Kate Katzer, Liz Carlson, Roz Stendahl, Schmincke, Schmincke half-pan watercolor set, Schmincke Horadam, watercolor set, Wet Paint St. Paul

Professionals Students This just in! New products we are excited about

Why Wet Paint Stocks Stillman & Birn Sketchbooks

Post author By Wet Paint
Post date May 8, 2013

Wet Paint staff, Steve and Langhan, and the display of Stillman & Birn sketchbooks.

justinswededelta — Justin Terlecki pen on Delta

Back in the 1970s, if you were a serious art student, it was standard to carry a black bound sketchbook just like your professor. Besides being the repository of your sketches and notes, the binding gave you the sense of this being a permanent record, a uniform format that would be the historic record of the studies for your artwork. As this tradition continued through the decades, the black sketchbook began to evolve. Some artists didn’t like the roll of the page caused by the binding, so paper manufacturers started providing the field sketchbook: the same hard black leatherette cover but with spiral binding. Others introduced micro-perforated sheets that could be torn out discreetly. In doing so, the original intent of the bound book changed over time. The book could now be easily edited; pages torn out and discarded instead of kept archived in place and in sequence.

By the beginning of the 21st century, the popularity of the black sketchbook made it quite a commodity item for the pad makers. Unfortunately, in order to compete with each other, this meant that many black sketchbooks began to come out of Asia with lower and lower prices and with paper of the quality of a cocktail napkin. This devolution of the quality of the black bound sketchbook only took into consideration that all art students and most artists wanted this product. They had lost track of the purpose of the book … They ignored the fact that paper quality could affect the drawings made on their pages. They totally missed the trend of artists working in mixed media which requires heavier and better paper. They didn’t notice the growing movement of sketching as an art form where the final work is kept within the sketchbook itself. And they lost sight of the vital role that the black sketchbook could play as a place to record ideas, document the creative process, and archive one’s development as an artist.

Wet Paint staff, Steve and Langhan, and the display of Stillman & Birn sketchbooks.

As an industry, art materials has been ripe for the return of a quality black bound sketchbook and in 2011, Stillman & Birn did just that. Michael Kalman and Oscar Hernandez are the founders of Stillman & Birn. Michael is the nephew of the original manufacturer of the first black bound sketchbook in 1958. Michael and Oscar believe that artists need sketchbooks that are the same caliber as any of their other art materials. Stillman & Birn understands that all artists don’t work alike and need papers with different surface qualities, different weights, different levels of whiteness, and of course, different sizes and different bindings. They have listened to artists and worked to provide them with a line of bound sketchbooks that is as diverse as their needs. Stillman & Birn has sourced the finest quality papers from Europe and then bound them under the strictest quality control in the United States. They’ve mastered the challenge of featuring heavier papers in bound books in addition to spirals, and, most remarkable of all, their bindings will actually allow the pages to lie flat and satisfy the sketcher who wants to work across 2 pages.

Stillman & Birn is a supplier that truly wants to provide artists with the best possible product they can afford and Wet Paint has worked closely with them in the improving of their product and the development of new items. Their commitment to the artist shows not just in the sketchbooks themselves, but in the amount of information that is provided on each book.

Wet Paint has stocked the Stillman & Birn books since their first manufacture run. The Wet Paint staff personally endorses this line. Justin Terlecki only uses Stillman & Birn sketchbooks now and says, “The Alpha and Beta have wonderful paper in them that is suitable for fountain pen sketching. The paper takes the ink beautifully and produces nice clean lines that don’t feather. The paper is also heavy enough that your drawings do not bleed on the other side. When you hold one of these books in your hand, you can tell that they are no ordinary sketchbook.” They are Liz Carlson’s go-to sketchbooks too. She uses the Alpha series because “the bright white tone of the paper is perfect to show off color media.”

Last month Stillman & Birn began shipping their new “Zeta Series” sketchbook to meet the demands of artists wanting a 180# heavy weight, natural white, smooth surface in both hardbound and wirebound books. And in June 2013, Wet Paint will have 22×30” individual sheets for each of the 6 papers featured in Stillman & Birn’s sketchbooks. This enables the artist to move from their sketchbook to a larger format without having to adapt to different surface qualities. Later in the year, we will have sampler sketchbooks which will include pages of all 6 papers so people can experiment will all the surfaces in the series.

Visit Wet Paint in person or online to see the entire line of Stillman & Birn sketchbooks. And visit the Stillman & Birn blog to see more examples of what artists are doing in their books.

Tags illustration, Journals, Justin Terlecki, Liz Carlson, paper, paper manufacturers, sketchbooks, spiral binding, Stillman & Birn, Wet Paint St. Paul, Zeta series