Compact and portable Travel Easy Wooden Box Artist Sets are available in 4 mediums. The overall size is only 6″ x 10″ x 1-½”, but each set provides a complete set of materials in an easy to carry, quality box. RYRSET-A7000 is an acrylic painting set with 6 Essential Paints and a taklon brush, a drawing pencil with a sharpener and eraser, a palette and 5″ x 7″ acrylic pad. RYRSET-O7000 features 6 essential oil paints with a white bristle brush, a drawing pencil with a sharpener and eraser, 5” x 7” oil pad and an 8 well palette. RYRSET-W700 includes 6 watercolor paints with a natural hair brush, a…

Our fearless Art Supply Quirky Facts reporter at large, Peter Alba, has been asking some tough questions lately. While in Kensington Art Supply (Annette Wichman) in Calgary, Alberta and Art Media (Kathy Christian) in Beaverton, he discovered that both of these retailers keep a book of crazy funny things that customers say or ask for. We thought this would be a worthy ongoing feature of the Art Dog Blog. Peter thinks that there may be others of you fearless retailers of art tools who do the same. Why not email me with your own strange tales? Until then enjoy the accounts of our two featured retailers: Things Asked asked of…

Meet Scarlet, winner of this month’s Art Dawg contest. She is a world traveler and honorary goodwill ambassador for Mo’s Art Supply & Framing in Covington, LA. In this shot she is displaying her artistic side in fashion. In future entries watch out for this lady’s penchant for fashions of the world and seasonal tributes. Her owners are Simone and Curran Burke. Simone and Monique Perry are the owners of this jewel box of an art store. If you are ever in Covington, stop in, say hello and check out their innovations on store layout and merchandising.

Fetch your sketch and go! There’s nothing quite like this cool product that was the brain child of our former Art Alternatives product manager Mike Wiener. Available in two portable sizes, 8-1/2″ x 11″ and 11″ x 14″, these spiral-bound sketch books feature acid-free buff colored paper and handles convenient for toting your sketch book from one inspirational location to another. Capitalize on creativity this holiday season by wrapping them together with manga pens or colored pencils as a thoughtful holiday gift set. And don’t limit yourself to shelves; the handles let you merchandise these on pegs next to your carded sketching supplies and with your portfolios, too. Both great…

We have just published the latest New Items Report . You can check it out by clicking on this link: New Items Report No. 212. In the meantime, here’s a quick peek at some of the great new items. Lazertran Decal Transfer Paper This system is amazing! Apply any image to virtually any surface from wood to glass, ceramics, walls, furniture, artists’ canvas, and more. This decal paper works with photocopiers that use fuser oil and is not recommended for use with oil-less toner machines. Each pack contains ten 8-1/2″ x 11″ sheets. Retail is $23.99 per pack 40% off every day. Art Alternatives On-the-Go Kids’ Art Toolbox & Carry…

The Aqua Brush Duo is a fabulous product that solves creative problems for artists of all styles. The assortment features this amazing dual-tip, water-based ink pen made especially for artists, designers and hobby painters. Each pen has two extremely stable fiber tips for a variety of effects. The broad, brush tip allows brush-like strokes and fine lines are easy to do with the bullet tip. The assortment includes ten each of the 24 colors plus 10 additional markers each in light cobalt, apple green, dark sepia, and black. There’s a great looking wood display at no charge with purchase of the entire assortment. The pens retail for $1.97 each and…

Check out these great “new” sets featured in MacPherson’s 2008 Holiday Buyer’s Grumbacher has introduced three beautiful, new cherry wood box sets for the holidays. Ideal for a starter gift set, the case features a beautiful keepsake cherry wooden box with a gold plated clasp and cloth interior. Each set holds 10 (24ml) tubes of Grumbacher’s most popular colors along with two high quality Grumbacher brushes. These sets are attractively priced ($59.95 MSRP) and available in Academy Oil, Academy Acrylic and Max Water Miscible Oil. Discount is 50/15% off. Grumbacher has unveiled a new set program for each of its exciting paint lines, featuring beautiful, new packaging.  The Collegiate Program offers Basic…

Introducing Okido – A delightful and affordable new art and stationery line with a vibrant personality! Fun, Function, and Fashion come together in this broad assortment of colorful products that include colored pencils, pens, crayons, erasers, paper pads, and stationery sets, which are sure to appeal to teens and tweens alike. The visual impact is optimized through clear packaging that not only completely shows off all the product inside, but is also reusable to minimize waste and maximize function. All you see is color and product! Just in time for holiday is the Okido end-cap assortment! Not only great for back to school and impulse items, Okido products make for fantastic…

Strathmore Artist Papers THE GREAT HOLIDAY SWAP FOR ARTIST TRADING CARDS Retailers:  there’s still time to enroll! Strathmore Artist Papers™ is hosting a global artist trading card swap this holiday season. Join in the excitement, promote this innovative consumer promotion and receive great retailer benefits. Join by October 15 and receive the following: •    Promotional swap material including display header card with entry forms, poster with entry forms and 50 postcards for handouts or store mailings •    Chance to win $2,000 Retail Value of Strathmore® products* •    Increased traffic and sales as consumers purchase supplies for the swap! *Winner will be randomly selected from all retailers who enroll in the…

The market for Manga books and merchandise has seen continuous year on year growth, bringing commercial opportunity on a surprisingly broad scale. Outside of Japan, some of the world’s largest Manga and comic markets are in Europe, with North America also accounting for a sizeable section. Manga is a Japanese art form, originating in graphic novels (comic books) and now, increasingly, a part of mainstream popular culture. Manga fans will consume just about anything Manga-themed, and related art supplies are very much in demand. Regardless of artistic ability, end users are keen to recreate their favorite character artwork or even produce their own amateur comics – and as a result,…

We’re pleased to announce the launch of “Commercials Gone Krazy,” a nationwide video contest in which participants can create and submit their own Instant Krazy Glue® commercials online.  Be sure to tell all your friends and colleagues! Each contestant can submit one video and it must address the theme “Commercials Gone Krazy.” Entries must be one minute or less and in miniDV, BETA SP or MP4 format. It’s free to enter and those who wish to create their own “Commercials Gone Krazy” video can visit the contest Web site, Commercials GoneKrazy.com, to sign up. The Grand Prize winner gets a trip for two to Hawaii, which includes some crazy adventures…

As the busy Fall BTS season winds down, ColArt has launched a very exciting Holiday Gift promotion packed with a selection of new sets, as well as some old favorites, at great savings through MacPherson’s. This year, you will note the abundance of sets with open-window packaging designed to allow consumers to see what is actually in the set. New Sets are available in all product ranges and price levels, including: Winsor & Newton: All New Sets – 60% off! New Art Sets featuring Cotman, Galeria and Winton New Wood Box Sets w/open window design (Cotman, Galeria, Winton, Sketching) New Box Easel Sets (Cotman, Galeria, Winton) New Easel Painting Sets (Cotman,…

Our buyers love to keep our sales force informed of the latest twists and turns in product and supplier information. Here is a peak at the latest entry: MOORE PUSH PIN By popular demand, we have added the “T-Pin” from Moore; this item is listed on the Moore sell sheet from the last SMIAB. Click on the small image to the right for a copy of the sell sheet (2008 New Item Insert). The item number is MP72T-PIN-20, and the sell sheet shows the retail pricing. Product will be available in all 3 MacPherson’s DCs in the next two weeks, ans samples will be included in the next SMIAB shipment.…

The latest 12-page issue of the GOLDEN Just Paint Newsletter, which focuses on the new OPEN Acrylics product line, will begin hitting mailboxes on September 15, so be on the look out for it!  The newsletter will include a Consumer Sample Kit of OPEN Acrylics, and will be sent to over 21,000 artists, art educators, retailers and distributors worldwide. We’ve learned that the best way to describe OPEN is to hear from the artists who have been experimenting, discovering and participating in the line’s development throughout the process. In this issue Mark Golden asks four artists with very different working styles to share, from their perspective, the opportunities and challenges…

Royal & Langnickel is offering the “Deal of a Lifetime” on 7 new brush lines. Each line features double crimped brass ferrules and our exclusive Silk Touch handle. Buy two assortments and get one assortment of equal or lesser value free. Receive a 50+50% discount, plus free racks and free freight. These are your choices: Aurea, which means beautiful, is a blend of natural bristles with a special multi-diameter synthetic hair. Bordeaux is Royal’s smoothest red synthetic filaments ideal for the heaviest acrylics. Imia features the finest quality interlocking boar bristle hair. Longhandle Majestic has been designed with the same exacting standards as Royal’s existing Majestic line with multi-diameter taklon…