Spring trip to St. Louis Art Supply

Hello everyone , welcome to another blog! I’m trying to post weekly since I have quite a bit to share. Sadly, I’ve been a bit under the weather recently and haven’t had too much time for my usual activities, however, I am back now.

Very recently I got to visit my favorite art supply store: St. Louis Art Supply! If you have been a regular reader of my blog, you probably remember me shouting out the store on a couple of my recent winter blogs. I started shopping with St. Louis Art Supply online back in 2020. I was so happy to have found such a neat store. They have curated and rare art supplies from all over the globe, an assortment that is hard to find anywhere else. I was very fortunate to have been given a tour of the warehouse by the store owner – Xena. It was certainly the highlight of my week. It was super neat to see the lab where all the Federal color products are made. St. Louis Art Supply manufactures their own watercolors and pigment inks all of which are a dream to work with. I will make a separate blog post about the Federal color Tonic watercolors, plein air season is starting and I expect to be painting quite a bit from now on. 

Also, they have a store cat and dog: Malcolm and Ellie! 

I did buy lots of new art supplies. I think my favorite purchase is a set of Toirono colored pencils (set of 24)  . These colored pencils are wax based and are super vibrant. These pencils are made in Japan by Uni Mitsubishi Pencil. It’s been quite a few years since I’ve worked with wax colored pencils, the last ones I used were Prismacolor and I was not satisfied with them. Unlike Prismacolor, the Toirono colored pencils never seem to break, they overlap beautifully and are wonderfully saturated. I will include some artwork and swatch tests I made with these lovely pencils. I like to keep this set of pencils on my desk at all times. They are great for both quick studies and\or finished pieces.