Where To Buy Art Materials In Dubai

So if you are an artist and you are wondering where you can buy art materials in Dubai then you do have a few options. Sometimes canvases in particular can be in short supply as they tend to send a shipment over that lasts a few months, gets sold out and then they order another one.

Anyway, there are two really good places and a bunch of others. The main place I buy my materials is in branches of Emirates Trading. They have a big branch up by the Al Nasr Cinema near Oud Metha and they have some smaller outlets at Bin Sougat Mall, Mall of the Emirates (DUCTAC) the old art centre (DIAC) and other branches in Sharjah etc. They supply Windsor & Newton canvases and Paints.

The other main place I buy paints, canvases and brushes is Kazim stationary in the Jumeirah Centre which is one of the many malls down the Beach Road (it's the one with the big Magrudy's at one end). They tend to have a good supply of Daler Rowney canvases and System 3 Paints.

There are also some other shops like Borders and Dubai Library Supplies who also supply different makes of paint including Pebeo.

If you want to get a canvas made to size then they will do this for you at Jam Jar, otherwise it is a bit cheaper to get them ready made from the shops.

Selling Art Online

There are numerous websites set up for selling art online and as of recently I did not really take the opportunity of selling my art online for a few reasons:

• I think it is very difficult to get a good feel for a piece of art just by viewing a photo of it, especially where there is a lot of texture involved.
• Shipping - with big heavy pieces of art the shipping cost can be prohibitive.
• I constantly sell my pieces in Dubai the the UK so I would have to keep tabs on what I had on offer online or else have a separate collection.

But recently I have been looking at Saatchi online (which I have been a member of for a few years) and they have set up the opportunity to sell your art online. You can sell originals but also you can sell prints of your work. This seems like a really good option in the online selling thing as they do all the work! They print the image off on paper or canvas, deal with all the shipping and I just get a cut of the profits. Also you can decide what price you want to put on your work which is great. So I have put 3 or 4 pieces up for sale as prints. They are paintings that I have a really good image of and ones that I like best that I think will make good prints. So I'll see what happens!

Buy Arts & Crafts Materials This Weekend at ARTE

The weekend at the ARTE soukh which is at Times Square Centre off Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai on Friday 13th May from Midday until 7pm, not only will there be a large selection of hand made arts and crafts to buy but also you will be able to buy unused arts and crafts surplus supplies that some of the artists and crafters have in their closets at discount prices. Among the things on offer will be excess Swarowski crystals from Carrie and surplus felt from Miriam the Felt Lady.

Come and take a look and maybe you can get some extra supplies for your arts and crafts.

Project Mega 2.0 for Dubai based Artists and Creatives

Following on from last year's event which a friend of mine took part in, Project Mega 2.0 is now being launched. For anyone with a creative mind this could be a good experience - if you get chosen you get to decorate your own Mega and participate in the exhibition. The organisers are choosing 100 locally based artists to take part. For further details check out their blog http://megasinvasion.wordpress.com/projectmega/

Guest Juror at AUD for Students' Final Year Projects

So last night I was invited to be one of the guest jurors for the Fine Arts students final year portfolio presentations. What an honour to be asked to start with but also slightly daunting to put your own personal judgements on the work of these students who all obviously have a lot of talent.

What I also didn't realise until I got there was that our (the jurors) comments and marks would go towards the students final marks. No pressure then.

There were 7 students in the fine art category, 2 of whom were specialising in photography. All the students work was pretty diverse and all obviously had talent but there were a couple who I felt that in addition to having the talent they also had the vision, imagination and inspiration to be hugely creative in what they did. Obviously I don't want to name names on here but I was particularly impressed with one student who had some amazing varies and creative ideas and I'm sure could make it any day as a professional artist if that is what they chose to do.

So, all credit to AUD for producing some great students but in the end for me it comes down to a combination of talent, nurturing, innovation and creativity that makes a great artist.

Petition for the release of Artist Ai Weiwei

http://www.change.org/petitions/call-for-the-release-of-ai-weiwei

Please sign the petition above to support the call for the release of artist Ai Weiwei from China, who was detained at Beijing airport on his way to Hong Kong on April 3rd 2011.

Ai Weiwei is, among his many achievements, the creator of the sunflower seed installation at the Tate Modern which took workers 5 years to create under his guidance.

Mesopotamia Exhibition at Art Abu Dhabi

So last night I went to the Mesopotamia exhibition at Art Abu Dhabi on Saadiyat Island. It was the first time I had been to Saadiyat and although I had been to Yas Island before, this was much further down the road and it struck me as being right in the middle of nowhere. There are going to be 145,000 people living on Saadiyat eventually but at the moment I doubt there are more than 145!

Anyway, the Arts Abu Dhabi building is fully functional and a light and airy space - a perfect museum space really with a quality restaurant and facilities. They have a workshop room where they are doing some free demos (most already fully booked unfortunately but that is what happens when something is free and interesting!). There was also a large auditorium where the talk was held that I went to listen to last night.

The Mesopotamian exhibition was definitely worth a visit - it was amazing to see the carvings from around 5000 years ago and the first primitive writings. My favourite pieces were the cylindrical ceramic carvings that, when you rolled them into clay, produced beautiful relief pictures in fine detail.

Last night was a lecture by Dr Irving Finkel, a curator at the British Museum, on the World's Oldest Writing. We actually saw Dr Finkel outside the Arts Centre before we went in to look at the exhibits and even though we had no idea what he looked like there was no mistaking this had to be him! (long white hair and beard with glasses!). Anyway, what could have been a very dry subject was one of the most brilliantly entertaining talks I had heard in a while. Dr Finkel was obviously hugely enthusiastic about his subject as he himself said, he could have gone on for 7 hours about it! Interspersing an amazing knowledge learnt over decades with stories of finds and realisations, the talk was a huge success.

If you get a chance to visit the exhibition and listen to any of the talks or take part in the workshops then I highly recommend it.