Shopping for Color in Downtown NYC

Here's a post on an island of a different color- Manhattan!

Kremer Brushes

This week my hub and I went on a city trip that wasn't to our usual Astor place haunts, but instead to some new ones that had been on our living-an-art-full-life must see list. We did have to go to one usual stop and that was Pearl art supply store to restock, but all our other stops were new treats!

And if you're a creative, I think you'll love these places too- in fact you might just want to hit the links in addition to reading my blog and bookmark these sites (which are all pretty impressive in their own right) for your next artsy NYC shopping trip.

Kremer Pigments Inc.

Kremer storefront window

I know I've mentioned the book COLOR: A Natural history of the Palette by Victoria Finlay on this blog before but its worth mentioning once again. Every creative, illustrator, watercolorist, designer, painter and well-rounded artist should own this book, and maybe you do. But if you have a hankering to get a hands on visual supplement to the origins of color you need to go to Kremer's.

my hub browsing the stock

This is a shop that sells all you need to create your own paints, dyes or mediums for watercolor, acrylics and/ or oils. They also sell damar, varnishes and inks. The store, lined with shelves of gorgeous bags of powdered pigments specializes in historical pigments as well as contemporary methods. If you like the way the ol' masters did it- or you just want to be in the know - you have to go.

Next stop: Purl Soho

Yarn at Purl Soho

Purl is a fabric store in Soho New York that you will often see advertised in any crafty magazine with gorgeous photos of stacked fabric.

Wool felt at Purl Soho

They have wool felt for felting, stellar embroidery thread, rows of gorgeous fabric and walls lined with delectable high quality yarn for all you knitters and crochet divas out there.

Next stop: Papabubble

What a name right! Well, years ago I took some glass classes at Urban Glass in Brooklyn, NY. For fun I took an additional weekend workshop on pulling sugar. We worked with it very much the way you do lampworked glass.

candies up close

Anyhoo- it gave me an appreciation for handmade artisanal candy and Papabubble is just the place for that! They have shops in some of the best cities around the world like Barcelona, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Seoul & Taipei. They employ the millefiori technique to roll designs into the center of the candy and specialize in making custom designs to order.

Papabubble Artisanal Candy bags for $5

Above you see two Papabubble Candy Artisans making a custom order of candy.

Next Stop- Kid Robot

Ok So we HAVE been to Kid Robot before, but not since they've remodeled and expanded their shop! The Urban Vinyl toy mecca still houses many DIY munnies and Urban Vinyl Artist figures, clothes and blind boxes.

We also went to a gallery where I saw artwork by some of my all time fave artists from our fave art magazines Juxtapoz and Hi-Fructose! But this blog has become long enough and it was all just in a single days work- so I'll blog about the gallery next.

I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did and I'm so happy I was able to take you along with us as we depart from chickens, coops and travel to return to our art-full lives! ~.~

Ciao- Amarettogirl