My patio needed a good summer clean so to get in the mood I planned a craft project around it: painting flower pots! This step-by-step guide will explain how to use acrylic paint to decorate your pots and other terracotta ornaments. Patio before and after pictures – stay tuned!
We had a fabulous evening of fun last month where Lawrence staff members were given a screen printing demonstration by Vicky Ramsey printmaker. We thought we would share some photos and wisdom with those of you fascinated by this craft or looking to start out in screen printing.
Screen printing materials: Cutting Mat, Wooden Screen, Fabriano Accademia paper, Speedball Acrylic Screen Printing Inks (Medium Red, Process Blue), Artist Quality Squeegee 15cm, pencil, Craft Knife and stencil paper
What better way to kick off the new year than to pick up a new medium you haven’t tried before, from a manufacturer that you can trust. In this post, we will tempt you with one of our favourite brands – M Graham – who manufactures oils, acrylics, watercolours and gouache too. Their paints are of superior quality – made with ingredients such as honey and walnut oil – if you have tried one range you will certainly want to try them all and if you are completely new to M Graham, read on and find out why we recommend them for the serious artist.
Valentines Day is just around the corner and it’s not too late for a last minute greeting card. With regard to the success of our latest card making post, we’ve put together a bunch of ideas for those of you looking to surprise a special someone with a hand-made card.
Pre-made cards and envelopes are the best way to go when you are in a hurry. Most come in packs of 5, 20 or a 100, making sure you are well prepared for the next occasion. What’s even better is that you don’t have to sacrifice the quality of paper as you will find paper specially crafted for the card making enthusiast.
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he Fabriano Mediovalis is a beautiful crisp white paper, ideal for pen, pencil, watercolour, pastel, charcoal and many other techniques. It is also suitable for inkjet printing and even bookbinding! With four deckle edges and slightly textured surface at 260gsm, this has been a huge favourite. It comes in packs of 5, 20 and 100, multiple sizes, landscape and portrait format, flat and foldable varieties. Additionally, the 20 and 100 packs make an ideal present as they come in a beautiful gift box.
If you are looking for a handmade paper, Khadi is 
the way to go. This beautiful Indian paper is a white 100% recycled long-fibred cotton rag with a unique texture and a 210 gsm weight. Similarly to the Mediovalis, this card and envelope combo comes in packs of 5, 20 and 100. The square shape enhances the hand-made quality of this paper and you can be sure that your greeting card will look unique each time you make one.
We also have a range of blank cards and envelopes in packs of 50, in white and ivory colours. The texture of the paper is smooth which makes it ideal for a range of drawing media as well as to use it as a blank base to mount artwork onto. The weight of the card is 220gsm, while the envelopes are a light 100 gsm.
If you are interested in creating your own cards for 
Valentines Day, you can now buy Maya Card in A4 and A3 sizes on our website. The benefit of this is that you have control over the shape and the size of your greeting card and you can choose from 29 colours which makes them the ultimate base for putting your own designs onto.
Here, I created a simple watercolour design on my favourite Canson Heritage paper, ready to be glued onto Intensive Pink Maya Card.
We hope this entry helped find the right card so you can be ready for Valentines Day! You can order everything mentioned in this post online, via Mail order by calling us on 01273 260260 ext1. or by visiting our Hove Shop on Portland Road. Happy Valentines!
We decided to start 2018 with a brand new website – www.lawrence.co.uk that will have everything our customers love about Lawrence Art Supplies and loads of new features, too – from shopping on smart devices to wishlists and easy check-out!
Phyllis is part of the #LiveAdventCalendar, our Christmas window display featuring new artwork for each day of the Advent period. This bubbly snow lady has so been popular with our customers (especially with children) that we decided to share Judy’s pattern with all of you. You will need some basic crochet skills but even if you never attempted amigurumi before, you will find plenty of tutorials on YouTube to bring you up to speed and get you started on this lovely Christmas project!
In this blog post we are answering one of our most asked printmaking questions: What should you do to keep inking rollers in good condition? Our rollers are made of high quality materials and are durable when properly looked after – there is no reason they should not look, feel and work as well as these brand new babies, fresh off our production line:
Summer is finally here and with it comes the possibility to paint plein air and explore new locations. Most of us are hoping to get out of the country and spend some holiday elsewhere, take a painting course in Italy or check into an artist retreat in rural France. If you are travelling with artist materials and taking a plane, you are most likely dreading security checks. What can you take on board, check into the cargo and what restrictions do you need to consider to avoid your equipment being confiscated? In this article we hope to shine some light on some of the rules and regulations of air travel, help you prepare with the right materials and sizes and offer some practical advice on what to do when your materials fall into the absolute no-no category.
Welcome back to our series ‘Starting out in…’ where we give advice about the materials you need to get into a new art form. It is time for Acrylics, a relatively new medium whose versatile use is only exceeded by the abundance of materials available on the market: paints, primers, mediums, varnishes – not to mention the surfaces ranging from canvases to wood panels! Worry not; after reading our beginner’s manual, the only thing you will question is, why haven’t you started earlier?
Our starter selection for acrylics: Fredrix Canvas pad, Lawrence Protégé Canvases, Pebeo Studio Acrylic Set of 10, Pro Arte W6 Acrylix Brush Set and a plastic kidney palette
Lawrence Art Supplies is now stocking Canson Héritage, a brand new watercolour paper that is a result of centuries old tradition and modern technological innovation. This 100% cotton paper was specifically designed to allow artists to lift colour easily and without damaging the paper’s surface. To celebrate the release of Canson Héritage, we decided to put its lifting ability to a test and give our readers a little insight into what it feels like working with this new paper.
