Shopping for Art Supplies
Published by simon on September 22, 2010Those of you on Facebook know that I’ve been moseying up to a new hobby (or rather rediscovering an old one) – water colour painting. Since I didn’t want to be mooching off the my daughter’s paint equipment (most of which were given to her by my mother), i decided to get my own.
After doing some shopping around, I got it from the shop near my house, run by this lady we call ‘Shrek’ (long story). So i spent like RM70 for a basic watercolour set, a few starter brushes, and an A3 artblock. I actually earlier tested colour wash on 160gsm paper – holy crap! paper turned pulpy immediately. So i had to get the best paper they had in the shop, which was only RM180gsm. Not much better, but at least it took a few colour washes before it turned pulpy.
Today I went all the way to Art Friend in Gardens Mid-Valley to get some good quality (at least 300gsm) paper. They had a few imported brands there, but they were REALLY expensive. The cheapest one they had there was the locally made Campap, cost me about RM26 for a block of 12 sheets. I looked around the shop, and the medium to good art supplies they have there didn’t come cheap either, esp the horse hair brushes and oil colours.
So bottomline, art supplies are expensive. Make sure you get cheap starter sets first if you’re not sure you really want to commit yourselves to it.
P/s does anyone know the other art supply store in bangsar is?
there are 2 in bangsar..right opp each other (right opp and next to PappaRich).. they’re quite expensive..but u know what? Everytime we go back to KL, my hubs makes a beeline there (and petaling st) as well. Because they’re much much cheaper in KL than here. Hope that makes u feel better.
oh ok now i know where in bangsar… the petaling street one a bit difficult to go down to kl.
When I was a student and obligated to do painting, I used to frequent the art shops along Petaling Street. Their pricing is friendly to a student’s pocket la.
I don’t remember the shop name, but if you walk along the stretch of street with the old Rex cinema and Popular bookstore on your right, go further in…u will see the shops. I think there is 2 shops there, on your left….if not mistaken. You must pass the Hai-O building also….
Umm…I think you may be using too much water when you’re painting
I used to do quite a bit of water colour painting during younger days (!), I remember the cheaper paper works fine for me.
But of course good paper give much better results, haha
ponytail – thx. but not sure when i’ll ever go down to petaling st…
pat – its the color wash method that causes problems… else the cheap 160gsm paper can be used.
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