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This just in! New products we are excited about

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.

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With 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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Wet Paint Weekly Workouts

WP Weekly Workout- Week 6: Panorama with PanPastels

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Claude Monet’s Nightfall

Take a stroll, look out the window, and paint the town!   Using the gorgeous Claude Monet pastel painting as inspiration, build, blend, and form your surroundings with smooth chalk pastels.  Don’t think of this workout like a drawing exercise, but a chance to blend color and build layers as a painter would.   We suggest using PanPastels because they take the mess out of traditional chalk pastels by putting it in a convenient cake format.  It truly feels more like painting than drawing since you are using your fingers, paper towel, or the handy Sofft Tool applicators.  Blank white page jitters? Try toning down the paper first with a light application of a neutral color (or your favorite color) using a large Sofft art sponge.

The PanPastel colors are brilliant, clean and blend beautifully. Each pan contains 40% more color than an average stick pastel, and without the waste from chalk dust and crumbling sticks there’s even more product for you to use! Try these with the Sofft Tools and you’ll never look at chalk pastels the same again!  Right now at Wet Paint, you can get the PanPastel sets for 15% off our everyday price and individual colors are buy 2, get 1 FREE!  Click here to see all our PanPastels!

 

These Weekly Workouts will be posted as Events in our Facebook Group, click here to join!
If you are not on Facebook, share your photos in our Flickr group
We will also post our exercises here on our blog
Click here to see our list of suggested art supplies

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Wet Paint Weekly Workouts

WP Weekly Workout- Week 5: Put a bird on it a la Basquiat!

phoca_thumb_l_Basquiat_JM-BirdOnMoneyMake it bold, make it graphic. Then, put a bird on it!  Get some inspiration from the Neo-Expressionist painter, Jean Michel Basquiat (like his awesome painting here).  Let color and line lead your composition and don’t be afraid to show your marks and push your color boundaries!  We suggest using acrylic paint markers for your bold color fields (swatches of color in the background), and then add your accents on top with oil pastels. And, of course it’s March and that means it’s our annual Make Your Mark Sale, so all our paint markers and pastels are on sale (see below for more info).  Jump in with Jean and have fun!

It’s our Make Your Mark Sale, where you can get all paint markers for 15% off our everyday price, but our Montana paint markers are buy 3, get 1 FREE (that is in addition to the 15% off)!  All our oil pastels are buy 2, get 1 FREE!  And, all the sets are 15% off our everyday price!  Yay! Stock up on the array of colors and sizes and mix it up!  Click here to see our Montana paint markers, and here to see the oil pastel sets!

These Weekly Workouts will be posted as Events in our Facebook Group, click here to join!
If you are not on Facebook, share your photos in our Flickr group
We will also post our exercises here on our blog
Click here to see our list of suggested art supplies

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Events at Wet Paint News

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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Wet Paint Weekly Workouts

WP Weekly Workout: Week 4- Brush up on your footwork with the Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens

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Andy Warhol shoe drawings

Put your feet up, it’s time to draw your shoes! Favorites, old, new or dream shoes. Kick them off and draw them where they land or line them up in a row. Draw one pair or draw them all! There’s even precedent in art history for this Workout: Andy Warhol drew shoes, too. Try using a fineliner to outline first, or just go for it directly with broader points like the lovely brush tips of our favorite Pitt Artist Pens!

Never tried Pitt Pens? Wet Paint has all the Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens on sale for 27% off MSRP for open stock and 32% off MSRP for sets! You’ll love these pigmented drawing ink markers. We like them for their ease of use, light-fastness, and wide range of colors (so many colors – 58 including metallic and a unique opaque white!). With brush tips in fine or bold widths, you get the structure of drawing and the expressiveness of painting all in one tool! Click here to view the line of Faber-Castell!

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Andy Warhol shoe- 1956

Fun Lou Reed lyric to help inspire (from song “Open House”):
I think I got a job today they want me to draw shoes
The ones I drew were old and used
They told me – draw something new

These Weekly Workouts will be posted as Events in our Facebook Group, click here to join!
If you are not on Facebook, share your photos in our Flickr group
We will also post our exercises here on our blog
 Click here to see our list of suggested art supplies

Categories
Wet Paint Weekly Workouts

WP Weekly Workout- Week 3: Watercolor with Wassily (Kandinsky)

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Wassily Kandinsky, “Squares with Concentric Circles,” 1913

Time to bust out your brushes and watercolors and dip into abstraction! Try a simple pattern of shapes and colors  (like the gorgeous Kandinsky circles shown here) and experiment with wet and dry techniques- or both!  For example, try wetting the page with water before applying your color, or blot your brush after loading with color and drag it across a dry page.  Blend techniques and see what happens!  We are using a limited palette of colors (see below for more info), but you can use whatever colors appeal to you.  And, don’t feel like you’re going in circles- maybe try squares instead!

Adobe Photoshop PDFEverybody loves Daniel Smith watercolors (in fact, Wet Paint was the first store to stock them in the Midwest).  Wet Paint staffers, Liz Carlson and Kate Katzer, had the pleasure of selecting a unique palette of Daniel Smith watercolors for this exclusive, limited edition set (Liz also created  the lovely Cactus Wren illustration on the label).  The colors included in this custom set are: Blue Apatite, Burgundy Yellow Ochre, Jadeite, Deep Scarlet, Bloodstone, and a FREE tube of Serpentine Genuine.  This selection of colors would be an exciting addition to any watercolor palette- landscape/nature or portrait painters will love it (but who wouldn’t?)! This set has a MSRP value of $135.18 (5 colors + free Serpentine) for $65.17 which equals more than a 50% savings!  Click here to purchase!

Already got these colors?  Good news, all Daniel Smith watercolors are 40% off MSRP!  Click here to check out the entire line!

These Weekly Workouts will be posted as Events in our Facebook Group, click here to join!

If you are not on Facebook, share your photos in our Flickr group

We will also post our exercises here on our blog

Click here to see our list of suggested art supplies