Take a Walking Tour of Your Art Supply Store

Today’s Image

Icon for Art Supplies

Continuing my last blog, which was my walking tour of one of my favorite art supply stores in town…

I left us at the end of the aisle where all the oil paints are displayed. You can find all the major brands. At the end of this aisle you have choice to make. You can either continue to the back of the store where there is lots of room to roam around, or you can make a hard left and visit even more aisles with more art supplies. I usually choose to go to the back half of the store to see what’s happening back there.

I don’t think I mentioned in the last blog, but this retailer also has a pretty complete choice of frames and framing supplies for all kinds of artwork in addition to a full-service custom framing department. There are about four aisles filled with all standard sizes and shapes of frames for every occasion including very ornate carved wood to the latest colors in metal frames.

I may have mentioned I’m frugal, so the only frames I buy here are the metal sectional frames that come in the colors black, silver, and brass and only when they’re on sale. I will buy a matte that’s cut to the size I need, but I usually don’t get the plexiglas here if I’m framing a watercolor because I think it’s too expensive—I get that at a big-box home hardware supply store. Of course, I do it myself and assemble the frame and plexi with my artwork.

Anyway back to my walking tour. The whole middle section is now relatively bare with just a few tables and easels haphazardly placed. However, this retailer is one of the few who caters to artists and those who want to improve their skills with real, live, hands-on art classes held right here in the store. I have been in the store when a lesson is in session, and this area is full of students, easels, and paint. Professional artists are available who give lessons in oil, acrylic, and watercolor as well as general drawing classes. That’s one of the things that makes this store unique.

Moving on, the entire left rear quarter of the space is devoted to canvases. I do believe they have the largest selection of canvases of any of the art supply stores in this area. There are rows and rows and stacks and stack of stretched canvases in all sizes from tiny ones to huge, almost mural sized ones. They also have a selection of rolls of canvas and stretcher bars in case you like to make your own. And there is always a sale on some of them, and you can save a lot if you shop carefully.

As you come toward the front of the store, there are even more aisles. One is devoted entirely to easels, bags, boxes, carrying cases, and portfolios for artists to transport their art supplies and artwork. They have a very good selection (although I think a fishing tackle box from a sporting goods store works just as well for paint, pencils, and paint brushes).

The next few aisles contain an assortment of items that, while not necessarily considered specialty, are possibly purchased less often than paint, paper, and brushes. I’m talking about drawing instruments and graphite pencils, colored pencils, watercolor pencils, pencil sharpeners, and art markers with points in all widths.

Then there’s a whole side of one aisle that contains nothing but pastels, hard and soft, in all shapes and forms. And over to the right is a book and magazine section with a fairly good supply of how-to and art technique books.

By now, we’ve come full circle, and we’re back up front near the long checkout counter. Near the checkout is a bulletin board with artists' and galleries' business cards, ads for art lessons, upcoming art shows and exhibits, and other art communications.

So there. You’ve completed the walking tour with me. I hope you enjoyed it, and that the next time you’re in your favorite art supply store, you’ll take the time to really see everything that’s in store.

Cheers!

Tour an Art Supply Store With Me

Today’s Image

An Icon for Art Supplies

Courtesy of Microsoft

I’ve mentioned before about how much I enjoy visiting art supply stores. I’m like that little kid in the candy store.

In this blog and the next one, I’ll take you on a walking tour of one of the art supply stores where I buy some of my supplies. Of course, I can’t mention ever item or type of art supply, just know that it has a very full and broad inventory. I hope you enjoy reading about my tour as much as I enjoy taking you on it.

Although there are at least a half dozen or so of what I consider to be bona fide art supply stores in my area, I usually shop at three that are relatively close by. By bona fide, I mean they carry a full line of supplies for all media as well as tools, supports, paper, and just about everything else related to the creation of art. There’s nothing wrong, of course, with those big box national or regional chains that include craft, scrapbooking, framing, and particularly holiday seasonal supplies, but that’s not what I’m blogging about today. I’m talking about a “real” art supply store for artists.

First, the store is in a suburban location, which is great for me. Some of the other art supply stores are naturally located in the areas where a lot of artists have their studios, where the art galleries are located (gallery row, etc.), and near art museums. I, however, don’t live in or near any one of those places, so I’m grateful this retailer remembered there are many of us artists who live all over the metro area.

This store is tucked away in a shopping center that is at the intersection of a major freeway and a major thoroughfare, but because of the center's design--all the shops face inward--it’s not obvious to passers-by and never crowded. Maybe that’s too bad for the owner, but great for me.

When you enter, they usually have placed some clearance items right there, so you have to either notice or trip over them. Sometimes it’s canvases; sometimes it’s art books and how-to books; sometimes it’s paint or watercolor. Whatever clearance item it is, I like that they showcase it as it brings out the bargain-hunter in me.

Over on the right wall is all the paper and drafting supplies. There is every kind of paper you can think of from big rolls of tracing paper to full-size, 300-pound watercolor paper and everything in between including all kinds of card stock for printing and even yupo. There’s also a section with electronic projectors for projecting your art project on a large support or venue.

The next aisle over is paint brushes—all kinds of natural and synthetic brushes in all sizes (from no. 1’s to way-big brushes for painting murals or whatever) and shapes (bright, filbert, round, flat, you-name-it) including sponges and foam brushes.

Opposite that is watercolor and gouache. Not every brand is on hand, of course, but I think I counted six or seven of the popular ones. They have student and artist quality paint in all sizes of tubes and forms including tins or square containers of dry watercolor.

The next aisle over is all of their acrylic paint. I do mean all as it takes up both sides of the aisle. I believe this store has the biggest variety of acrylic paint of all the stores in the area I have shopped at including all those down in the art district. There must be at least ten brands available, again in student and artist quality, and they come in tubes, jars, bottles, even tubs of all sizes. The choice of colors seems almost limitless, but it’s not, of course. They have way more than your usual palette colors, at which I’m sure some artists would take offense, but I like the choices available (remember, I’m a big fan of acrylics). They also carry a couple of lines of the new, slower drying acrylics

Moving around the corner to the next aisle, you’ll find all the oil paint. There is every bit as much choice in oil paints as there was for acrylic paint. All the major brands are represented in student and artist quality. I forgot to mention, at each section or display of most brands of watercolor, acrylic, and oil, there is is usually a color chart or marketing brochure or whatever that describes the attributes of the paint to help you make a choice. Very helpful.

Well, there’s still a lot of retail space to cover, and I’ll continue my walking tour in the next blog.

Cheers!

Two Books About Diego Rivera

Today’s Image

Iglesia

Acrylic on Canvas

Byrne Smith Copyright 2008

I noticed recently the number of viewers to the OrbisPlanis is steadily increasing, so I wanted to take moment to thank the regular viewers/readers and let you know I appreciate your continued patronage. I also appreciate your sending the link to the OrbisPlanis to others who may have an interest.

A while back, I mentioned I was reading a biography on Diego Rivera and would blog about it when I finished. Well, I finally finished it. Actually, I received two books about Rivera earlier this year. One is Diego Rivera by Andrea Kettenmann and published by Taschen, and the other is Dreaming With His Eyes Open, a Life of Diego Rivera by Patrick Marnham and published by the University of California Press. Today's Image is an acrylic I painted a while back that reminds me of Rivera's homeland in Mexico.

The former is a relatively concise book that summarizes the life and work of Rivera in succinct chronological order. It also contains dozens of colorful images and photos of Rivera’s paintings and murals during his long career. I like being able to view most of Rivera’s important work in a book that is easy to open and thumb through quickly. At the same time, it also includes a lot of information about the work so that you can take your time to study each one if you like.

The other book is an exhaustive biography on the life and times of one of the most complex artists (in my opinion) I have read about. It’s 317 pages of margin-to-margin text, plus a colorful insert of selected works and appendixes with chronology, source notes, and a most complete bibliography. This is one of those biographies that, once you get into it, you feel almost as if you were tagging along unseen through Rivera’s life with him and his colorful, to say the least, family, friends, and acquaintances.

The book takes you from Rivera’s childhood in Mexico to his student painting days in Paris, Moscow, and Spain to his success in Mexico as a muralist and then on to a productive, but turbulent, period in the 1930s in the United States. It ends with his later artistic life in Mexico.

Before reading these books, I had only the briefest knowledge of Rivera as a muralist and the husband of Frida Kahlo, an artist in her own right and whose life is the subject of many books. What I did not know is that he was quite a force not only in art but also as a political figure. I get the impression that he was equally as famous for his mural artwork as he was for his socialist views, many of which are portrayed in his murals. He and Frida Kahlo were members of the Communist party in Mexico and even entertained Leon Trotsky in their famed Casa Azul home in the late 1930s.

There’s way too much detailed information in the book to cover in a blog, but one of threads in the book is Rivera’s famous and infamous infidelities. I lost count of the number of his affairs with many women, even including Kahlo’s sister.

One episode I found interesting was his business dealings with the Rockefeller family and a mural commissioned for the opening of Rockefeller Center in 1933. Without going into all the intriguing details, it was ultimately destroyed before it was unveiled due to Rivera’s adding a portrait of Lenin, which was not in the original design of the mural.

If you like to read biographies about famous artists, as I do, you may want to put these two on your list.

Cheers!

Name Those Unusual Colors & Add Some To Your Palette!

Today’s Image

Icon for Today's Blog

You may not have noticed, but I hope you did, that I recently added “puce” to the Artists Factoids section over there on the right-hand side of the blog (yes, -> right over there). I add new terms to the list whenever I run across an art word or term with which I’m not that familiar.

When I was writing about the color, Mars Violet, a few blogs ago, I ran across puce and decided to add it to the list. Anyway, it got me to thinking about the names for some of the other colors with which I’m not all that familiar.

It also reminded me of some of the creative names for colors that online retailers give to the colors of their garments. The names sound like nice paint colors or colors in nature, but, yet, you never really know what the color is. Here are few examples I’m talking about: stone, moss, thistle, seagrass, loden, sapphire, seaport, meadow, and my favorite, chile pepper. Please! Be more specific, so I don’t have to pay for return shipping when I thought I ordered a green shirt, but I receive a blue one (seagrass)!

Anyway, I decided to see if I could find a few other colors that I consider to have unusual or less-than-common names. Here goes:

Sepia Artists may know sepia from photography or printing tones and tints, it's a dark brown-gray and comes from the Greek word for cuttlefish—why, I don’t know.

Fuchsia A pinkish-purple color named after the flower of the fuchsia plant; it’s cousin, electric fuchsia, is often used instead of magenta for some applications.

Cerulean You probably know this blue hue, too, which comes from Latin for heaven or sky and is applied to a range of blues from azure through greenish-blue; the pigment was discovered by Andreas Hopfner in 1805, and chemically is cobalt stannate; George Rowney, of the Daler-Rowney brand of paints, began to sell it in 1860.

Madder Also known as Rose Madder for its rosy tint, it's from the crushed root of the madder plant.

And from a most interesting site, The Phrontistery, is a very complete list of lesser-known colors, a few of which I had heard of:

Amaranth A reddish-rose color named for the flower of the amaranth plant (from Wikipedia).

Aubergine The French and British term for eggplant, it’s the color of eggplant, a very dark purplish-brown (from Wikipedia).

Cinnabar A bright red, tinted with orange used in the vermilion pigment, chemically is mercuric sulfide (from Wiktionary); do not confuse with Cinnabon!

Chartreuse Named because of its resemblance to the green color of one of the French liqueurs, it’s 50 percent green and 50 percent yellow (from Babylon.com).

Saffron A deep orange-colored substance consisting of the aromatic pungent dried stigmas of saffron and used to color and flavor foods (from the Greenbelt blogspot).

Sorrel Basically it’s the color of chestnuts and is used to describe the yellowish-red or reddish-brown color of horses (from Greenfield.com).

And several from Phrontistery, of which I had not:

Aeneous Shining bronze color

Corbeau Blackish green

Eburnean Ivory colored

Ianthine Violet colored

Mazarine Rich blue or reddish blue

Piceous Reddish black

Virid Green as in verdant (you’ve probably heard of Viridian green)

As I often say, there’s always something new to learn in art.

Cheers!