Latest Special Offers

It seems the slowdown in the economies of Western Europe is beginning to show in the increasing number of  special offers. As art materials are very expensive, especially for watercolour artists, this is to be welcomed.

Great Art are offering until 31st August Daler Rowney artists quality watercolours at 50% off. This applies to all sizes and means the 15ml tubes cost £5.10p for the A,B colours and £7.25 for C. This is an incredibly good offer. In addition Great Art have reduced the minimum £ amount for free delivery to £24.95p. Check them out because there are other offers. www.greatart.co.uk

Lawrence of Hove www.lawrence.co.uk/ are becoming more competitive on price and next to Jacksons have the largest number of artist quality watercolour brands. These include Lukas, Art Spectrum, Old Holland, Da Vinci and Graham. They are the only UK source of Graham and Da Vinci and you won't find Art Spectrum very often. To my mind Art Spectrum are overpriced and I have no experience of them. They do seem to have a lot of mixed pigment paints in their range.

With Graham Lawrence have increased their offer when you buy 6 tubes from 20% to 30%. This makes the price of this highly regarded American brand competitive with Winsor & Newton. Prices  range from £7.95p to £12.95p (30% off £5.56p - £9.06p). The website www.mgraham.com/ has a very good accurate colour chart and details, pigments etc, of the watercolours. The offer is now back to 20% off if you buy 6 tubes and the extra 10% has expired. 4/09/11

Da Vinci have both 15ml and 37ml tubes, the latter in a limited number of colours. Prices range from £7.95p to £14.95p (20% off for 6 - £5.50p to £11.96p). The 37ml tubes start at £10.95p to £25.50 (20% off £8.76p to £20.40).  The new Da Vinci range is highly regarded in America and £8.76p for 37ml!!!. The Da Vinci website is also very good www.davincipaints.com/ with an excellent colour chart, again with pigment details.

That isn't all. Lawrence, together with Great Art, also sell the German Lukas brand in 24ml tubes. Prices are very competitive from £5.50p to £7.95p. The Lukas website has details of the watercolour range, colours, pigments etc, which can be downloaded as a pdf. www.lukas.eu/

In addition for this weekend only Lawrence are offering a further 10% of all purchases. The only downside is they have a fixed carriage charge of £4.99p so this has to be added. Why can't they follow the lead of Jacksons, Bromley and Great Art and have a minimum price over which carriage is free? I would certainly buy more if they were to do so.