Recently my husband and I went on a quick jaunt to Montreal – and even though our time there was short, at the top of my ‘to do’ list was to go to at least one art store. In Calgary we do have an awesome selection of art supply stores, but at the same time I’m always keeping an eye out for new & exciting products that I may not have seen before. Art store = my ‘candy store’ lol. Anyway, while in town I managed to get to three art stores, yay! Here is my review of these Montreal art stores:
British Blue Print
(1831 rue Ste-Catherine Ouest)
My favourite colour is blue, my husband is British… plus I’ve always found blueprints cool? (nerd) lol – anyway, so I really couldn’t help but check out this shop after finding it in a google map search. It’s tucked in on a busy strip down town, but within walking distance from the McGill area where we were staying. The shop size was on the boutique side, but had most paint supplies you’d need. They covered most popular brands, and had everything a beginner would need, plus some more specialty end items. Lots of street art supplies though, so if that’s your bag, then this is your place!! Ps – check out the fun exterior art!
Their website is: www.centredartbbp.com
Kama Pigments
(7442 Rue Saint-hubert)
Oh my goodness I was in love with this place the moment I walked in. I’ve always been drawn to ‘olden times’ type things, and this place was styled after a turn of the century general store. Floor to ceiling shelving (with a fun built-in ladder to reach the upper items), tin ceiling tiles (I’ve always been a sucker for these!), and everything organized and displayed with precision. Oh. Em. Gee. And as far as the art supplies goes, they carry various high end brands, but particularly specialize in their own line of pigments and paint supplies. So if you’ve ever wanted to make your own paint, they have the raw materials for you to DIY! Which I thought was pretty exciting. Definitely a great shop for oil, acrylic and watercolor painters. In addition to paint they of course carry brushes and other items that an artist would need as well. It is a speciality shop for sure – and definitely a must see! I did buy some pigment there by the way, so I will be writing a post on that down the road 🙂
Their website is: www.kamapigment.com
DeSerres
(various locations around town)
The largest store out of the ones I visited, with the closest comparison I can think of back home would be ‘Michaels’… but better lol. There are multiple locations in the city is my understanding, and the one I went to was located in a shopping mall actually. It had a huuuge range of things from scrapbooking supplies, framing, knitting, all the way to fine art materials. Their pricing was competitive, and I quite enjoyed exploring all the different areas in store even though I was only really on the prowl for paint related items. They also had a lot of art kits for kids, so if you’d like to get the wee ones’s hands dirty too they had a lot of safe and fun art items for kids. But they have the artist grade materials covered too (Golden, Daniel Smith, Liquitex, etc), and lots in between. A good one stop shop really!
Their website is: www.deserres.ca
All in all I had a super fun time checking out what which each store had to offer, and getting unique items at each. We do hope to visit Montreal again in the future, so if you have any places there to recommend checking out (food/music/art wise) please leave a comment below, I’d love to hear!!