Madame Pickwick » Pebeo Vitrail

on the road: meeting and greeting

Dave — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 20:42:35 +0000

The Coast to Coast Creative Art Convention will be held in Toronto this year from April 29-May 1 and Madame Pickwick will be there. I’m not that crazy about being on the road, but as they say, ”it goes with the territory”. Years ago, there were a number of decorative arts distributors in Ontario and they seemed to do a booming business.Very independent. Stonebridge Collection and the bigger Folk Art Enterprises are two that come to memory. Folk Art had a lovely catalogue of wood,metal, paint, brushes and accessories and they got sky-high prices for their stock. Good for them. Things have changed and no one is left to serve the market.Most craft supplies are sold through chains now, but the cycle may be changing.Its nice to meet people there and gab and we’ll be trying to figure out if there are enough decorative painters still hanging in to make it worthwhile. We do have confidence in the organizer, Audrey De Jong, so we are crossing our fingers that things work out.

Pebeo Studio has been a choice for stores wishing to diversify from craft paint.

The less enjoyable side of trade shows is the packing, preparing, and the long haul to Toronto. There are people who do business travel all the time and its hard to see how they cannot get burnt out by the experience. We will be at the Passion Couleurs Show in St.Jean sur Richelieu two weeks before and we don’t know what to make of this event. A toss up.The St.Jean show is a reprise by a rival group to the one that organizes in the fall. This one is a real guess, but the first year is usually the best, especially if the weather is bad which wouldn’t surprise us. The Quebec shows are never dull anyway. They are always a generous sprinkling of the bitchy and the cheap which makes the good ones all the better.The idea is to avoid the flea-market mentality.You have to laugh and not let it eat your energy. However, we have heard Ontarians have caught up to Quebec in the former regard,so maybe we’ll learn something new.Before the original St.Jean show was canned, we enjoyed a lot of success there and they had up to 10,000 visitors. I recall once we had flyers printed offering a chance to win an ”imaginary voyage” a kind of virtual vacation that seemed to draw the throngs to our booths.We have been asked to represent Pebeo and we are looking forward to that and we’ll be doing some body painting as well which should turn heads.

We are offering freight-free transport in Quebec and extra discounts depending on the volume. For more information you can reach Benjamin Bouchard at info@madamepickwick.com ….there will also be the opportunity for a free elephant from India to those shopkeepers who purchase $1,000,000 worth of stock. Ask Ben for details

Audrey de Jong:This incredible event is dedicated to the creative art industry. You will experience an exhibit hall filled with the ‘tools of the trade’. Also we have four full days of seminars available in all different mediums and different skill levels. Come out to the Delta Meadowvale Hotel on the corner of the 401 and Mississauga Road on April 29 – May 2nd. Check out our web site for more information.

Tracey Moreau will be demonstrating for Deco-Art at the show.

Its all crystal clear

Dave — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 21:44:12 +0000

Its a story of value added substitution. Plaid has a venerable line of craft glass paint that has been around as far back as when cars grew fins and James Dean was a brooding rebel, and Marlon Brando was On the Waterfront. The line is called Gallery Glass and has been known for its distinctive packaging. We started distributing the line some time ago knowing full well that its not exactly a cachet product with street credibility given that Wal-Mart uses Gallery Glass as part of its basic offering. Surprisingly, we discovered they sell at pretty healthy profit margins. All that squeezing of suppliers and penalizing them for various offenses – perhaps real and imaginary- mean you save more and contribute to a healthy and wealthy economy. I digress.

Non-toxic is a great selling point

The best-selling part of the Gallery Glass line was the Crystal Clear product which with is a liquid clear acrylic for fake stained glass. More than half our sales in the line were tied to the 2 oz and 8 oz formats. What was actually happening was crafters were painting with Pebeo glass paint and then using crystal clear on the spots that were to look like fake transparent stained glass since it was so cheap. We had a retail of $7,50 for the 8 oz compared with almost $20 for Pebeo’s version which was called ”med eclairisant” or lightening medium. Crystal Clear was lights out in sales and after the artist started using Pebeo Vitrail on canvas, sales went even farther. Then the trouble started. The Crystal Clear is not the best possible materials and soon the product started peeling, lifting and flaking off canvas; it did not seem to hold on a porous surface.

Carol Smith is the Plaid house artist for Gallery Glass and you can follow her blog. click image.

Enter Pebeo. A couple of experimenters then started trying alternatives. Amsterdam heavy gel mediums worked pretty well, but at a $13 retail for 8oz the price was an issue although the quality seemed excellent. Pebeo has a gel mat and gloss in 8 oz tubes that sells for $9 a tube and has become the substitution of choice now. Quality is terrific and it works fine on glass or canvas. But crystal clear is still a good product, its just that because its acrylic does not mean it works its best n all the surfaces. Perhaps with a heavy coat of gesso it would adhere better.

We have a great deal on Gallery Glass and Crystal Clear. The 8 oz Gallery Glass Crystal Clear is on special $3,25 each/Case 12 min. Its Day 3 of the Madame Pickwick hot air balloon Around the World in Eighty Days tour:

A great solution for glass painting on canvas.

*All purchases of $250 will be shipped freight-free in Quebec

*All purchases of $500 will be shipped freight-free in Quebec plus 3% discount on your bill

* All purchases of $1000 will be shipped freight free in Quebec plus 5% additional discount on your invoice

*All purchases of $3000 will be shipped freight free in Quebec plus 10% additional discount on your invoice

Maritime provinces and Ontario with the exception of Newfoundland are eligible for 1/2 freight allowance

For more information use our toll-free at 855-565-2112 or contact Benjamin at info@madamepickwick.com

glass painting the old fashioned way

Dave — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 20:02:11 +0000

Pebeo is at it again. According to the North American sales office, we sell more Pebeo ”Vitrail” glass paint in Quebec than they do in all of France. Sounds hard to believe. The product is a bit pricey and there is only an ounce and a half in the bottle, but it does work like no other and not a lot is required. There have been American products like Enamels by Plaid, Gloss Enamels by Deco-Art and Ultra Frost by Deco-Art that come to mind, but even though considerably cheaper do not sell in meaningful quantities. Its also good for selling brushes, since the Pebeo is solvant based and does a nifty piece of of scrapping your brushes.

http://en.pebeo.com/Children/Decorate/Waterbased-Vitrail

The big news is that the Vitrail line has been expanded by adding ten new colors. In the past, all the colors were semi-transparent, but now opaques have been included. They should sell well. In a way, its a reformulation of their line called Ceramic which are opaque non-permanent colors. The consistency of Ceramic is pretty thick, and these new Vitrail colors seems more liquid and easier to load the brush with. There is a super white, a couple blues, two yellows and some intermediate shades. According to our rep, the factory in France is pretty primitive. they earn their money the old fashioned way….. probably pouring it from a vat into a pitcher and then into these little bottles by hand. Well, maybe. We just hope they have things right. When the recipe is written on index cards and keyed into the hand mixer, things can happen in France. Like general strikes when the weather look promising! As you can see, Quebe and France is a love/hate platonic relationship. If they are so smart why do they think Betty Crocker , Lucky Charms and Pop Tarts are so darn good?

Read More: http://www.pebeo.com/Loisirs-creatifs/Decorer-les-matieres/VitrailAfter solvent evaporation, the oxygen in air is incorporated into the structure of the polymer chains to form inter-molecular bonds. The hardness and strength of the paint film increases gradually during this phase. This applies to decorative paints such as Vitrail or Ceramic. After complete oxidation of the paint film, the resistance to water and some solvents increases.

There are also two new colors in the leading contours. A rich gold and a pale gold. Since there is already gold, vermeil gold and old gold, there is a lot of competition already. The original seven leads are now available in 37 ml which is new. Less confident about that. The tubes already dry out and jam in the 20 ml size so it just may mean more waste. Price is ok though. We will not ship individual colors but will sell complete displays of any Pebeo glass and enamel product: Porcelaine, Vitrea , Vitrail or Ceramique. For display pricing send a note to info@madamepickwick.com

SOFT GEL ON TAP: CRYSTAL CLEAR PERSUASION

Dave — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 20:00:24 +0000

In the decorative arts, it is always startling to see the degree to which product sales are generated by the decorative painting teachers or the books and pattern packets. Projects are often completed and resemble, at least in its initial stages, like a cooking recipe, and often the students will follow it to the exact ingredient, as if they were in the kitchen. With all the time spent on a painting project its no wonder they want to be certain not to use a product that is not compatible with another and ruin their work.

The beauty of decorative painting; at least to those practicing fine art- is the degree to which work can be erased, cleaned up, lifted and painted over until the desired effect is achieved. In the past couple years Golden soft gel mat has been a popular product in the literature and courses for image transfer onto canvas in particular. The fact is, the product is really expensive. Golden is priced as the Bentley of fine arts and is used frequently in a craft application. Other identical products can give the same result at much more ouch for the ounce. Liquitex mediums appear to be equal quality at significantly better value. We have been recommending their soft gel mat as a substitute or even the Madame Pickwick private label which is the same quality at a little cheaper but 25% more fluid.

When will it ever stop? Glass painting has been on a tear for the past four years and does not seem to be abating. At least two years ago, it appeared to have run its course; but instead changed ideas and became stronger than ever. What was responsible for the surge? Someone very clever started using Pebeo “Vitrail” glass paint on Canvas. The colors are pretty saturated and it applies like a fluid acrylic. The off gasses are pretty strong: I do think the product, because of the solvent and the quantities used is toxic over the long term, but it has not seemed to dent its unwavering demand. In fact, the company has had to re-fashion its warning labels to apparently reflect the stricter standards now in force. Also interesting is the heavy use of matte and gloss gels on canvas with the Pebeo, or even less expensive, the Crystal Clear from the Gallery Glass line from Plaid which is priced for penny pinchers.