Cheaper art supplies don’t have less quality. Often, simply looking for sales and networking can result in discounted art supplies. For artists who make a living from their art, cheap art supplies can help them work harder and produce more products. Here are my tips on where to buy cheap craft supplies.
Networking to buy Victual Art
Being a member of an artists group or gallery can give you access to scarce art supplies. Many art supplies offer discounts to members of certain artist groups. This practice of art supplies sellers is useful because it can provide many new customers. It gives a lot of artists access to cheap art.
Many “bricks and mortar” and online art discount forums offer art. “bricks and mortar” galleries often offer discounted booking services for shows. They supported online galleries to provide discounts on art supplies to the online retailer. Many arts schools have relationships with art instructors as students. Ask the gallery owner or check the benefits program online to find plenty of discounted art.
Or, if you’re a member of a craft group, it’s worth asking local craft store vendors if they want to participate in order to get a group discount. This can mean a lot of cheap art for artists and lots of new business for the seller.
Buy Cheap Art Supplies on Sale
Sales at art supply stores are often dramatic, with prices slashed by 50% and even more. A great way to keep track of art sales is to register for email updates and newsletters from your favorite art vendor store. So you are the first to know about sales. Cheap art supplies often sell out quickly.
Buy Cheap Art Supplies from Independent Sellers
You can find cheap art supplies in whole places that are out of the box, such as EBay, thrift stores, garage sales and auctions. For example, I once found an excellent drawing board at a charity shop. It saved me several hundred dollars over the cost of making a new board from a craft store.
Buy Cheap Art Supplies by Buying Student Grade Paints
The main supply stores supplies for two levels of painting – the artist and the student. Student degrees are often significantly cheaper. If you use lots of craft supplies, student grades are an easy way to spend less. The quality of students varies according to the level of art. A student degree tends to be of lower quality than an artist degree; However, I have found some student grade pigments that I prefer to artist grade.
Grades of student pigments are especially useful if lots of art supplies are needed for practice. Another idea is to generally buy student grade art supplies, supplemented with a few high quality key pigments.
If you know where to look, you can find cheap craft supplies that won’t sacrifice the quality of your production. Check out the link below for one of my favorite sources for cheap craft supplies.
