Art Supply Brands We Stock

Stationerie stocks around forty art-material brands, from mills that have been making paper since the fifteenth century to the brushes we make ourselves in Kolkata. This page is the index: what each brand is actually good at, and where to find it.

Brushes

• Stationerie — our own brushes, handmade in Kolkata by 60+ artisan brushmakers. How they are made.
• Princeton — American synthetics that behave like the natural hairs they replace: Aqua Elite, Neptune, Heritage, Velvetouch.
• Escoda — hand-tied Spanish brushes from Barcelona, stocked here as sets and travel kits.

Watercolour

• Winsor & Newton — Professional and Cotman, the English reference point since 1832.
• Sennelier — French, honey-binder watercolour and the original 1949 oil pastel.
• Schmincke — Horadam, German, slow-milled with a high pigment load.
• Daniel Smith — American, known for PrimaTek mineral colours and heavy granulation.
• White Nights — St Petersburg pans that rewet freely, at a fraction of European prices.
• Mijello Mission Gold — Korean professional watercolour, unusually fluid from the tube.
• Sonnet — student watercolour worth comparing before you commit to a professional range.

Acrylic, oil and gouache

• Liquitex — the first water-based artist acrylic, 1955; Basics and Professional plus the full medium range.
• Golden Artist Colors — American, unmatched on gels, pastes and grounds.
• Williamsburg — hand-milled oil colour with real character in the grind.
• Daler Rowney — English since 1783; Georgian oil and System 3 acrylic.
• Camel & Camlin — the Indian standard, from school poster colour to artist oils.
• Brustro — student-to-intermediate colour, pencils and papers at working prices.
• Mont Marte — Australian kits, easels and complete set-ups.
• Turner — Japanese acrylic gouache: dead matte, opaque, dries water-resistant.
• Fevicryl — Pidilite's craft and fabric colour range.
• Pebeo — French colour and fluid-art specialities.

Paper and surfaces

• Arches — made at the same French mill since 1492; the professional default.
• Fabriano — Italian since 1264; Artistico, Studio and Accademia.
• Saunders Waterford — St Cuthberts Mill, Somerset, 100% cotton.
• Canson — French since 1557; Montval pads and everyday drawing papers.
• Baohong — 100% cotton at a practice-paper price.
• Stationerie Dot — our own handmade watercolour paper, deckle-edged, 265 and 300gsm.
• Lana, Strathmore and Chitrapat — French, American and Indian papers.

Drawing

• Prismacolor — wax-based soft-core pencils built for burnishing.
• Faber-Castell and Staedtler — German consistency in graphite and colour.
• Koh-I-Noor — Bohemian pencils since 1790.
• Conte a Paris — sanguine, sepia and the classical drawing tones.
• Cretacolor, Lyra and General's — charcoal, graphite and drawing sets.
• Nitram — the charcoal used in atelier programmes.
• Mungyo — soft and oil pastels.
• Doms and Pentel — everyday pencils, mechanical pencils and brush pens.

Pens, markers and lettering

• Copic — the refillable alcohol-marker system for illustration and design.
• Tombow — Dual Brush Pens, the standard for brush lettering.
• Sakura — Pigma Micron archival pigment liners.
• Posca — opaque water-based paint markers that cover dark and non-porous surfaces.
• Zig Kuretake and Karin — Japanese and Swedish brush pens and inks.
• Artline — chisel-tip calligraphy pens and sketch pencil sets.

Printmaking, sculpture and studio

• Essdee — lino, cutters, rollers and block-printing ink.
• HS — calligraphy dip pens, detail cutters, pouring silicone and metal easels.
• TVB — aerosols and studio sprays.
• Easels and studio tools, palettes and knives, clay.

Buying in quantity

Schools, colleges, studios and retailers can order any of these brands in bulk — see wholesale and bulk orders. For brushes made under your own label, see OEM and private label manufacturing. Everything ships across India; our store is in Kolkata.