You may not have been able to visit the show this year or maybe you just like to get others’ take on what they saw that was noteworthy. Our sales and merchandising teams turned in their picks for the best of the show and here they are!
Art Alternatives Black Canvas was total hit at the show. Available in both Studio and Gallery profiles as well as canvas panels. We’ll have stock in our DCs around September.
Art Alternatives Multi-Media Sketch Books These 48-page visual journals with soft covers and heavy-weight, lightly sized drawing paper were designed especially for art class, but are also a great sketch journaling accessory. Low, low retail price points.
Art Alternatives Nesting Art Tool Boxes Nesting these simple black boxes saves shipping costs, and that translates to low nets and low retail price points. Plus, nesting lets you stack more for BTS sales!
Art Alternatives Studio Acrylics fit a niche for stores who are focused on building bridges to teachers in elementary, middle and high school art programs. The bulk acrylic colors are also well suited for social painting studios, the rage now sweeping through the southern USA.
Alumicolor New labeling specifies whether the product is for architecture or engineering, making it easier for customers to identify what they need. Also, there’s a new ruler with ledge for safe cutting so fingertips are nowhere near the blade.
Ampersand’s new kits created lots of excitement. In fact, there were a bunch of new items for Ampersand. We will feature the new gessobord counter display boxes in Fall BTS, as well as the new Artist Panel Pallet Stacks. We will also be sending out an e-blast with all the new items for BTS since some did not make it into our Buyer’s Guide. The new scratchbord designs are very cool.
Bernini Aerosol Spray Graphite pencil transfer spray. This is a great new product that might need a bit of explaining on your store shelf. Pre-book special (50/5/5 discount) on this is available still through 5/18 and the product will ship from the MacPherson’s warehouses at the end of May. Regular everyday 50% off discount resumes after pre-book. No size limitations with this product! Ideal for large murals and Urban Art, it is formulated to dry quickly for instant use. Order item number MVTS00510.
Canson’s BTS pad stack-outs wowed many NAMTA goers. Why? Irresistible offers like, “buy an XL recycled sketch pad and receive a 5.5×8.5 drawing sketch pad free”, and new watercolor pad and paint end-caps/stack-outs. Canson had some other awesome new items. We think their marketing & product management team is doing a wonderful job of keeping the market stoked. The x10% on the XL and the x20% on Newsprint stack-outs are good through BTS. The Watercolor Essential POG is built around a specially themed product, which will change with each promo. Display measures 24″w x 54″h x 16″d. MSRP $1,368.00; discount is 50/25 to Power & Non-Power retailers. Available in June. Hot show items for Canson included: 18×24 Pad Merchandiser (May), Colorline 300g (May w/ X20% thru July), 8×10 Art Board (June) and Van Gogh 200ml assortments (now).
ColArt’s new packaging on Winsor & Newton Oil mediums is a winner. This will be a rolling transition beginning in May. The faster moving items will transition first with the slower ones towards the end. MacPherson’s will rotate inventory in our DCs to make sure we sell through the old style first. More details will be shared as the transition progresses.
ColArt Oil Bar Revision Great idea to have the Oil Bar colors match the paints! The new 53” tall displays may be too big for some retailers, but they do look great. The new product begins shipping in mid-May. MacPherson’s will discontinue the current items in our system now to run down the inventory. The assortment drop ship promo will run through the rest of the year at 50/20/20% free freight & rack.
Daler-Rowney’s new Simply Simmons brush sets and new watercolor brush display are impressive. The new Simply Simmons Studio brushes will be available 6/1. Also noteworthy was the relaunched System 3 screen printing kit, which is available now.
Elmer’s new and impressive X-Acto blade has a coated edge making it 6x sharper than the competition. It has a unique two-tone metal look and will be available later this summer.
Enkaustikos Hot Sticks will be a winner, and they’ll be available from our warehouses in early May. Hot Sticks come in 86 colors. You can hold them sideways to cover more surface, or straight up for more detailed work. You can paint on a hot palette and transfer the image to paper, or melt down the Hot Sticks and dip into them with a brush. Encaustics are so versatile – you can do rubbings, mixed media art and much more. There’s a new wax medium and an XD wax medium available in open stock. A full assortment is available through special order. And new boar bristle brushes and anodized aluminum plates are coming soon.
Exaclair We heard from some of you that would like us to increase our selection, so we’re looking at that. There were also a couple of noteworthy holiday-ish items: Rhodia Pencil/Holder and a Mouse/Note Pad POP that we’ll definitely be bringing in.
Global Art New Watercolor Paper Display We’re looking to offer you a drop ship special on this soon.
Golden Williamsburg Mediums Golden has wonderful new mediums displays. The new rack is great looking and some of the mediums will now be bottled in glass or heavy acrylic – we love the apothecary shop look! Way cool and available now. Full line: WBM622821 (28 facings), MSRP = $2,003.00.
Jacquard Pinata Inks are a great mixed media item. The alcohol base makes them indelible and moisture resistant when dry, allowing use on almost any surface. Highly versatile, these can be used in a variety of ways including rubber stamping, fine art, fiber art and scrap booking, etc. The 1/2 oz inks retail at $3.59.
Krylon’s Glitter Blast is cool. Glitter is great quality and the spray volume is thicker. A POP display is available: KRK01020358 $314.87msrp @ 50/30 off. Drop ship, with free freight.
Letraset Promarker Metallic Sets These are sure to be a hit with crafters. We’re sorry to tell you, though, that the launch has been delayed until Fall 2011.
MidWest Balsa and Basswood Model making is hot again. Racks are free with purchase of assortments. The large rack is now modular, so it can be customized. Small dowels will be packaged in packs of 5 (less breakage and more store$-friendly). We will be adding more skus to this line.
Montana Cans Shop-within-a-Shop Concept was the buzz of the show. Urban art is the first truly new artist medium since acrylics hit the world in the 1950’s. Young artists ages 19 to 35 want to express quickly, big and bright without having to spend years learning techniques as is required with oils, watercolor and pastels. Things that fit this bill are acrylics, high performance spray paints, markers, large canvases, stencils, sketch books, etc. The shop-within-a-shop concept recognizes the needs of a diverse group and puts all the supplies they want in a prominent, well lit location in your store. Urban Art customers include fine artists; skateboarders (low pressure sprays, Montana Gold acrylic spray); and outdoor artists (Montana Black, a high pressure nitro combi spray paint, and Montana White, a gloss spray, and Montana Black markers). MacPherson’s Scott Present and Lisa Slauson got together with our Creative Services department to produce an awesome “inspiration book” that showcases ideas and concepts used by our retailers to capitalize on the shop-within-a-shop concept. Want to get inspired? Check out this web-based flip book version by Clicking Here!
And on the Urban Art subject, both Walter Foster and Northlight have instructional Graffiti Art titles that are a welcome departure from the inspirational/coffee table titles that are currently available. The Walter Foster title is How to Draw Graffiti Style and Northlight has Graff 1 (NLZ1818, in our Spring Buyer’s Guide) and Graff 2. We will be setting the new titles up and putting them into June What’s New.
Motsenbocker’s Lift Off line includes every conceivable art & craft removal product; all of which perform amazingly well and are non-toxic and eco-friendly to boot. The company motto says it all: “Produce the most effective removers and cleaners in the world THAT REALLY WORK and are three ways safe: for the environment, for any surface and for the people who use them”. Great You Tube videos for each item’s application. Check it out – Click Here!
Pan Pastels Lots of second looks at a line that now has firmly established itself amongst pastel artists.
Pentel’s new Arts Inking Center display got great reviews. This highly anticipated display will begin shipping from Pentel in early August.
Red Hot: Princeton Snap and Priceton’s new Neptune synthetic squirrel watercolor brushes are incredible. They point well and hold unbelievable amounts of liquid. In the words of one of our discerning sales people, ” the line is gorgeous!” Neptune assortment and open stock orders will ship without delay starting at the end of the month.
RGM Textured Combs were mentioned at the What’s Exciting Seminar on Thursday afternoon. They are great for encaustic waxes, acrylic mediums, clays, paste grain papers, etc. One retailer suggested these for pottery use as well. We will have these in our DCs in approximately 6-7 weeks.
Sanford Sharpie® Stained Fabric markers- with DIY tennis shoe concept a big hit- nice packaging and marketing..an easy sell. The line features new fade-resistant ink and a unique fabric brush tip that allows users to write thick or thin for ultimate precision on most fabric surfaces without the need to heat set. Sharpie offers eight bold colors (black, blue, red, green, pink, orange, yellow and purple), which are available in 4/cd and 8/cd sets.
Stillman & Birn‘s new floor display This great looking custom-made spinner unit is the perfect showcase for this wonderful line of premium sketch books!
Studio Designs has cool new Furniture Products that look great.
Yasutomo Chinese Watercolor and Sumi brushes were big hits. So were the Origami Bracelets and Rings kits. Yasutomo’s new Chinese watercolor paints and inks are the first in the art materials industry to conform to ASTM D-4236. The paints and inks currently available through Chinese bookshops and souvenir shops are not required to conform. These products are specifically designed for Chinese painting techniques, which differ from Japanese painting. The new Sumi brush, Haboku, will be available in a few weeks. The brush is designed to retain its shape after each stroke. The brushes also feature packaging that tout the benefits of the brush.
New Items/New Vendors
Crafter’s Workshop Stencils A nice alternative to Stencil 1, these will round out MacPherson’s stencil category. Great for visual journals and mixed media art and they’ll be great for add-on sales of brushes, scrapers, paint, sprays and spray paint, pan pastels, encaustics, etc.
Trimaco drop clothes, rags, respirators and gloves, all made in USA. We have been asked for all of these things and this line in in our sights…
Buddha Board We saw this, too, and liked it. We’re thinking about bringing it in. It is similar to Holbein’s Vanishing Image Water Brush Paper 9×13 (HBM49) which is available in 5-sheet packs for $7.50/pk.