As we enter the holiday season, we have rolled out some big changes to our shipping policies and rates. Most orders over $79 to the continental United States will ship for free. Exceptions include orders that don’t ship from the store (also known as drop-ship or factory-direct orders) and orders that include items that don’t qualify for free shipping. You can see if an item qualifies in the catalog, but the general requirements are that they are less than 10 lbs. and fit in one of our large standard shipping boxes. See the full shipping policy here.
The shipping charge for orders that don’t qualify for free shipping will be generated during the checkout process, and is now based on the items you are ordering and your shipping address instead of our old tiered pricing system. We have run the numbers and this means that the shipping charge for most small orders and for customers closer to us will be lower than they used to be!
Don’t forget that we also offer same-day delivery to addresses within 20 miles of the store, and even though you can come in and shop in person, we still offer free curbside/in-store pickup.
We are a very small team of five people and these adjustments should help us get your orders to you more efficiently and cost effectively. We appreciate your support and are doing all that we can to make sure we have what you need this supply-chain-constrained holiday season.
Raw Materials Art Supplies was nominated as the Best Small Business in the Westside-Downtown-East Los Angeles region in the LA Times Readers’ Choice Poll, Best of the Southland. (Our category is “SHOPPING & SERVICES — Small Business”.)
We’re up against some amazing small businesses so it’s an honor just to be nominated, but after the year we’ve all had, a win would be very welcome. So we’re asking you to please vote for us.
After more than a year, Raw Materials Art Supplies is back. We reopen for in-store shopping on Tuesday, June 15, 2021 at 10am!
The CDC announced new guidelines that fully vaccinated individuals could safely resume “normal” activities, both outside and indoors, without wearing a mask. While we are all so happy to be moving in the right direction, we will still require all customers to wear masks while visiting Raw Materials Art Supplies, and customer capacity limits and shopping time limits will also remain in effect. Why, you may ask?
Our staff can’t reasonably verify who is vaccinated and who is not. The CA Department of Health still “strongly recommends masks in indoor settings where vaccination status of individuals is unknown.”
We want to provide the safest environment possible for immunocompromised people.
Social distancing rules are still in effect, and limiting the number of bodies in the store makes social distancing reasonably possible.
Time limits not only reduce the possibility of transmission for vulnerable folks, but allow us to minimize wait times on busy days.
We will continue to reevaluate our policies as case numbers drop and vaccination rates rise, and we’ll update you as changes occur. We appreciate your understanding and continued support, and especially your kindness to our talented and hardworking staff as they continue to convey these guidelines. Our Raw Materials staff are working to create safe, welcoming spaces while providing outstanding customer service and recommendations for the best art supplies for you.
Beautiful, hand-painted GugimFolio by Hanaduri comes complete with a notebook insert and takes its name from the process used to make its cover, where paper made from mulberry trees is repeatedly crumpled and flattened. Each GugimFolio is hand made, hand painted, making every one of them truly one-of-a-kind, and hand bound by Korean artisans. Each GugimFolio includes a refillable, fountain-pen friendly notebook with premium quality blank Korean (hanji) paper, and are available in A5, A6, and Travel (4.5″x8.6″) sizes, and in four eye-catching color combinations: Navy Mint, Burgundy Sky, Blue Lemon, and Green Orange. Which combo is your favorite?
We are still closed to in-store shopping (getting closer, though!), but we made an exception for YouTuber ZHC and his gang of artists, who spent 50 hours in the store having fun, doing a little life drawing, and making art. He surprised an artist picking up an order with an impromptu shopping spree, brought in some of his channel’s subscribers for their own Supermarket Sweep-style run through the store, and stuffed cash in the bags of a bunch of pick-up orders. It was great.
If you have placed an order with us in the last few weeks, you might have noticed that your order is getting to you more slowly than expected. This is because of new policies put in place by the Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, who was appointed in June.
As a small business who does most of their shipping with USPS Priority Mail, this is a potentially devastating turn of events. The normal shipping time for Priority Mail packages was one to three days before the pandemic started impacted service. Then it started slipping by a day or two.
In the last few weeks, packages we handed off to our mail carrier took as long as a week just to get scanned in at the local distribution center. Packages dropped off at our local post office have been scanned in within a day or two. Even once they are scanned at the distribution center or post office, packages are taking several days, if not longer, to make it to the next distribution center on their way to a local post office for delivery.
We have had packages to Oregon and Nevada take nearly two weeks to be delivered after they left our hands. But it’s not all bad! We also continue to have a number of packages make it all the way to New York or North Carolina in four days.
We will continue to drop off packages at our local post office so that they get scanned into the system as soon as possible and you can follow the tracking as they make their way to you. This also seems to avoid them going through the Los Angeles International Distribution Center, which appears to be the biggest local bottleneck.
The American Postal Workers Union has a page full of resources with more information on these slowdowns and how to get in touch with your congressional representatives to encourage them to get the USPS the funding it already desperately needed to manage the impacts of the pandemic, and also restore the footing of the postal system instead of trying to carve it up and privatize it.
As always, thank you for your support, patience, and understanding. Stay safe!
We get questions about what basic supplies are needed to start creating with different mediums, so here is a series of posts about the fundamentals we recommend for artists beginning their creative journey. First up, Acrylics!
Acrylic paints are easy to start with: they dry quickly, clean up easily with soap and water before they dry, and although you can work with a variety of techniques, it is very easy to get started by simply applying paint to a surface right out of the tube.
The paint
Royal Talens makes two lines of paints that we recommend for beginning artists.
ArtCreation Expression Acrylic Paint Sets come with five to 24 colors. The sets with 22ml tubes work well if you’re going to be painting small, and the 75ml tubes are a good size to get larger quantities of paint onto a larger surface.
If you have a specific idea of what you want to paint and/or have a color scheme in mind, we recommend you opt for individual tubes of Amsterdam Standard Acrylics, which we stock in 120ml and 250ml tubes, plus a few colors in 500ml jars.
When you are ready for a higher quality paint, our recommendation will be to step up into products from GOLDEN, whether it’s their Heavy Body Acrylics, the Fluid Acrylics, or the slow-drying OPEN Acrylics for when you want the ability to blend colors on-canvas, or just need more time.
The surfaces
You will need something to paint on, unless you plan to start out by painting murals directly onto your walls.
Canvas Panel Super Value Packs from Art Alternatives are a cost-effective way to try out a variety of small surfaces that are easy to paint on. Great for experimentation and playing around, yet not so expensive that you’ll feel bad about messing one up, but also easy to pop into a frame when you strike creative gold.
Canvas Paper Pads from Strathmore are another easy way to get started, but we found that because they don’t hold up as well to a lot of paint, some beginning painters can find it a frustrating surface to start with.
Stretched Canvas from Raw Materials (that’s us!) is a step up from canvas panels, and as you get into larger sizes it is less prone to warping out of shape compared to canvas panels. While you can frame stretched canvases (like in one of these floater frames), these also look great if you hang them on the wall as-is.
While we don’t want to overwhelm you with choices, Cradled Birch Panels from American Easel are another great alternative, especially if you prefer a more rigid surface.
The brushes (and more)
You’ll probably need a way to get the paint from the tubes to your surface, and brushes are the most frequently used tool here.
We say “painting small” and “painting large”, but what really makes the difference in determining which handle size you choose is whether you are painting on a surface laid flat, or placing your surface on an easel. For a flat surface, a shorter handle is generally easier to manage, and on an easel, a long handle works better for most artists.
Looking to get overwhelmed by choices and pick out your own brushes? The Catalyst Brushes from Princeton come in short handle and long handle varieties, and both are excellent with acrylics. (They have a fancy synthetic filament that holds more paint in the bristles.)
Did you opt for tubes of Amsterdam Standard Acrylics? These Dosing Nozzles are a fun way to deliver paint straight from the tube to your surface in interesting ways.
The accessories
It is very handy to have a surface to mix your paints on, and this Mijello Fredi Weber Palette is great because once the acrylic paints dry, they just peel right off, and just like that, you have a fresh palette for next time.
When painting with acrylics, it is very important that you wash the paint out and not let them dry on your brushes. This Brush Wash Basin from Art Advantage is a great way to keep the water close to where you’re painting. Sure, you can use an old coffee mug, but it’s really easy to accidentally drink it instead of your coffee. Blech. Learn from our mistakes.
tl;dr We aren’t open yet except for online ordering, hope to open for curbside before June 15, and not sure when we will be opening to in-store shopping.
Celia is recovering now, but after her fever spiked and she started showing other symptoms two weeks ago, she tested positive for COVID-19. She never required hospitalization, but it’s hard to convey how terrifying this has been experiencing symptoms that could spiral out of control at any moment, given how little is still known about this disease.
We don’t know how Celia was exposed. Jim hasn’t shown any symptoms, tested negative at the same time that Celia tested positive, and is waiting to get tested again.
All of our staff have been furloughed, and they were all able to receive extended UI benefits that meet or exceed what they were earning at the store. Our landlord was able to extend forgiveness for some of the rent due during this time, we have cut every possible expense, and while the road ahead looks tough, we at least feel that we are in a position to prioritize the health and safety of our staff and customers above the strong desire to get back to business.
If Celia recovers, Jim’s next test comes back negative, and the local numbers on COVID-19’s impact continue to improve, we hope to start up with curbside service, local delivery, and shipping from the store by June 15. As we do that, we’ll also work on making the changes to the store layout and securing the necessary equipment and supplies that would allow us to welcome staff and customers back into the store.
If you’re new to us, please understand that we’re a mom & pop operation, even more now than ever. Our first priority has always been the health and safety of our employees and our customers. While we have made sacrifices and taken risks to grow our store, we also know that we have benefited from privileges and opportunities that aren’t accessible to everyone.
There’s so much more to say about what is going on in our city and country, but we also know we’re not necessarily the people to deliver the message and want to get back to how we think we can help most: putting the tools of expression into the hands of artists.
This video shows the 14-step process of making a Faber-Castell pencil.
From the selection of the wood, to the thickness and quality of the lead, Faber-Castell pencils stand head and shoulders above the competition. Since 1761, they’ve been perfecting the pencil. Check out the video to see the 14 step process behind their superior products.
What’s special about their pencils?
SV Bonding glues the lead the entire length of the pencil for break-resistant leads.
Thick leads use the highest-quality pigments for gorgeous color lay-down.
Graphite pencils with dipped ends or erasers on ends.
Coated with eco-friendly water-based varnish.
Made from reforested wood grown in their Forest Stewardship Council certified forest.
If you have been shopping with us for a while, you may remember Amy Shawley Paquette, the awesome Golden Working Artist who broke our hearts by moving out of Downtown Los Angeles and going on and having a great life, kids, and all that. (You probably don’t remember the Paquette part, that happened after DTLA.)
Now that we live in a time of global pandemic and the Internet, Amy is back – virtually – and through May and June will be offering free weekly Facebook Live tutorials on her Art by Amy Shawley Paquette page! These events will happen every Thursday at 4pm PT and will feature a different topic each time. The first demo is Thursday, May 14 on the topic “Customize your Painting Grounds”, and will last about 30-45 minutes. If you can’t catch it live, it will be available from her Facebook page for later viewing.
