Welcome to the Artmerchant website !

We draw on over 30 years experience of providing artists, designers and students with art materials and offer a friendly and efficient service to meet your needs.

We welcome telephone and email enquiries and can offer advice, if needed to find exactly the right product for your creative projects.

We stock a full range of Pastels and drawing materials, Schmincke watercolours, Pro Arte brushes and popular papers for drawing, painting and printmaking in packs and also single sheets to afford our customers more choice.

We are currently operating both a delivery service and pay and collect.

NEW ARRIVALS - THE PERFECT GIFT ALL YEAR ROUND...

Unison Colour Pastels Mini Sets £13.00

These new mini sets of 8 half size pastels are perfect for plein air of life drawing; compact and versatile; you can use them dry or add water to your drawing to use them for watercolour effect and they work well on a variety of paper surfaces.

NEW - Sennelier USK Concertina Sketchbooks & Watercolour Sketchbooks

These sumptuous linen covered concertina sketchbooks from Sennelier offer a choice of size and paper.

Green Linen Cover watercolour 300gsm Rough)16x24cm £13.99

Black Linen Cover mixed media 340gsm Smooth 10x15cm £10.00

NEWUSK Aquarelle Watercolour Mustard Linen Cover Sketchbook 8"x8" 300gsm Rough 100 Cotton £22.00

L'Aquarelle Handmade Watercolour Notebook 300gsm 20 sheets 6"x10" £20.00

L'Aquarelle handmade Watercolour Notebook 9cm x 15cm £13.00

NEW ARRIVALS:

Stonehenge Cartridge Paper by Legion. 100% Cotton available in white or natural. Single sheets size 22 x 30" £5.00

BLACK STAR INKS by Dr Ph. Martins

30ml Bottle £9.50 available in Matte and Hi Carb.

Drawing on a budget

Have you recently started drawing or are faced with home-educating your family and need good quality materials that don't break the bank but offer a professional finish? Here are some great value products that offer great versatility:

Quality stitched soft backed sketchbook with 150gsm cartridge paper available in A3,£3.50 A4 £2.00 A5 £1.50

Non-toxic charcoal that gives a velvety black finish and is less fragile than tradition willow charcoal sticks. Box of 12 sticks £4.40 or single sticks 50p each

Derwent Onyx Pencil £2.20

(a black graphite pencil)

Staedtler Triplus Pen £1.80

(Watersoluble ink pen)

Kneadble putty rubber that can be pulled into shape to use to draw highlights or erase areas without damaging your paper.

£1.00 each

Silvepoint Wire Holder £25.00

Silver wires 0.5mm £1.40 0.7mm £1.40 £0.9mm £2.80 1mm £2.80

Gold wire £18.70

Silverpoint Drawing Grounds:

C. Roberson & Co. 60ml Natural or Sanguine £7.50

Golden Silverpoint Ground £20.25

Unipin Fineliners in 0.05mm 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.5, 0.8mm

Waterproof when dry so that washes can be applied over them with out bleed. £2.5

Staedtler Tradition Graphite Pencils available in grades HB 2B 4B 6B 80p each

Artist's Essentials.....

Low Tack Masking Tape 25mm x 50m - when care is needed on delicate surfaces of art papers £3.50

Scotch Removable Tape 19 x 33m £5.99

Quink Ink - Black Permanent from Parker - a favourite with designers

£5.90 per bottle

Black Indian Ink 600ml

great quality but value for money from Abacus resources £8.75

Mediovalis blank cards and envelopes from Fabriano. High quality mould made paper with deckle edges, hand trimmed, designed for personalised invitations and greetings cards, calligraphy, letterpress and inkjet.

Size of paper 6.7x9 inches,

envelope 4.7x7inches

£1.40 each including the envleope

Artgraf - Tailor shaped watersoluble drawing block £6.50

Experiment with Silverpoint

This traditional drawing technique with metal wires harks back to Medieval and Renaissance times. It was favoured by Leonard da Vinci who sometimes used dark blue or sanguine backgrounds. I was inspired to try it after visiting the exhibition of his drawings at Manchester's City Art Gallery and loved the delicacy of the lines and marks that can made and the slight shimmer left on the page which is more subtle than graphite.

Gallery

Some of the work created by artists using materials listed on our website.

Desanzano, Lake Garda - Watercolour and pens sketch by Susan Challinor

Anglesey Road - Soft Pastel and watercolour

Phil Cunliffe

Fruitstall on the Amalfi Drive - Etching and aquatint on Bockingford Not paper by Susan Challinor

Salford Garden - Waterless lithograph hand-tinted with watercolour printed on Snowdon 300gsm paper by Susan Challinor

Morning Snow - Soft Pastel - Dr Tony Lyons

West Cornwall, Mixed media by Jane Cockayne £450

Yellow flowers - Pastel drawing by Sarah Morley using Unison Colour soft pastels. www.sarahmorleyfineart.com

'Tywyn sunset' Unison pastel and Caran D'arche pencils on Pastelmat

Dr Tony Lyons