Creative Gift Ideas, Created by ARCHies

There are many, many options when it comes to materials and tools for artists. When you are looking for a gift for a creative friend, it can be hard to filter through which sketchbook works best with certain pens or paints. What items are complimentary and what to not waste your money on.

And with the holidays upon us, let's not forget the importance of presentation. You want your gift to look good and thoughtful. So this year a few of us here at ARCH put our heads together and came up unique kits highlighting some our favorite tools and mediums.

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Caryn's Watercolor Travel Kit - $45

Not only has Caryn Oka been the ARCH gift buyer for nearly 20 years, she is also an accomplished water colorist. In space conscious San Francisco, you need to be able to scale your practice to your living, commuting and work environment and Caryn has put together a perfect "On-The-Go" Watercolor kit. All wrapped up in a zippered pouch you'll find;

• A 140lb Cold Press Fluid Watercolor Block
• The Peerless Water Color Booklet featuring 24 colors of concentrated transparent water colors
• 1 Waterproof Micron Pen
• 1 White Uniball Pen
• A Caran d'Ache Neocolor II Crayon and a Derwent Inktense water soluble pencil
• A Pentel Waterbrush

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Paige's Mixed Media Kit - $60

You'll recognize Paige Gausman as a member of our friendly staff at our Annex Store at the California College of the Arts. Paige makes many of our in-store signs, flyers and ads, and is a freelance illustrator and textile designer. As you can imagine, she uses many different tools to create all that work and she has put together this beautiful Mixed Media kit. Featured in this handy kit;

• A Claire Fontaine Crok Book. Perfect for dry media as well as water-based paints
• 4 tubes of Holbein Acryla Gouache
• An ultra fine Slicci Pen and a Kuretake No55 Brush Pen
• 4 Prismacolor Art Stix
• A palette, a paint brush, a peel-off eraser and a pencil sharpener

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David's Illustration Kit - $30

David Tenorio manages our Annex Store at the California College of the Arts and works as a freelance illustrator and art teacher all throughout the Bay Area. David has a wealth of knowledge about art materials and is often asked by students for tips and techniques on the over 20,000 tools and media we sell at ARCH. David has put together an Illustration Kit filled with ideas, instructions and includes;

• A Canson XL Mixed Media Sketchbook
• A Pentel Color Brush
• 1 Le Pen Technical Pen and a Letraset ProMarker
• A blue Col-erase Pencil, a Tombo Drawing pencil, eraser and sharpener

All of these helpful kits are packed in a zippered pouch and come with instructions for the tools and ideas from their namesake to get your creative juices flowing. You can find these kits exclusively at our PopUp Store at 2349 3rd St in Dogpatch.