As well as launching online student discount on Artstore.co.uk, we are also offering a new service to all GSA students at the Skypark campus.  As of the 5th of March 2012, we will deliver straight to Skypark at no extra cost.  There’s no two ways about it.  It’s just ace.

How it all works

1. Register for your account by visiting https://www.artstore.co.uk/shp/login.php and filling in all the relevant details. If you have your student e-mail address handy, pop it in the box at the end of the form to register for student discount. Hit “Save” and a confirmation should magically appear in your inbox, along with a verification e-mail to your student account if you have registered for discount.

OR

1. If you already have an account, log in at http://www.artstore.co.uk and click the “My Account” button at the top of the page. Just visit the “Student Discount” section and enter your student e-mail address to validate your discount.

2. Open the e-mail you have just received and click the link to authorise your student discount.

3. Add everything you need to the basket and make your way to the checkout.

4. To request free delivery to Skypark set your location as “UK College/Institution” and hit the GSA Skypark Delivery button.  Don’t worry about the delivery address; we’ll know to take it to Skypark.

5. Pop in your payment details, sit back, relax, and wait for your order to arrive (please note: this may involve “sitting back” overnight which might not be quite as relaxing as you might think. We recommend going home to bed and coming back into school the next morning.)

A few points to remember:

• Once your discount is verified it is valid for the next six months. Simply re-validate in the “My Account” to extend your discount.
• The cut off for next day delivery is 5.30pm, so make sure you get in there early just in case there’s any problems.
• If there is any problems we’ll e-mail you within just a couple of hours. We’re good like that.
• Minimum order is £5.00.
• Your order will be available to collect from the design office on the 5th floor from around 11.30am the next day.
• If you order at the weekend your order will most likely be with you on Tuesday.
• Don’t hold back with the feedback. This is a new service, so we’d appreciate any comments or suggestions about the way it all works. Just drop us a line at customerservices@artstore.co.uk.

At artstore, we like to do our bit to help students.  Mainly because we’ve all been there.  We know this year with the move to Skypark it can be difficult to access the materials you need.

To make the trip to Garnethill worthwhile, we’ve got an extra incentive. Each month, we’ll give away £100 of gift vouchers.

To win £100 of artstore gift vouchers, all you have to do is collect your loyalty card at our Art school store.  Every time you shop at our lovely art school store, you’ll get a stamp.  Six stamps for one entry.

You can enter as many times as you can fill a card.  And if you’re lucky enough to still be at the Mac, you can still enter too.

Pop in today and start collecting your chances!

The terms & conditions (legal bit)

1. Cards will be stamped each time a purchase is made at the Artstore at the Artschool store, one stamp per purchase.
2. The draw is open to all customers of artstore at the Art school. Transactions at the Artstore Queen St and online are not eligible for this draw.
3. Completed cards should be posted in the box provided at Artstore, Haldane Building, Rose St.
4. Customers can enter multiple times, provided they have completed a valid entry card each time
5. The draw is not available to artstore employees and their families.
6. The 1st winner will be drawn in store Tue 13th Dec 2011 at 2pm
7. Should the drawn ticket be incomplete or illegible, management reserve the right to redraw a suitable ticket.
8. The winner will have 30 days to collect their prize from artstore at the Art school.
9. The prize will be £100 of artstore gift vouchers, valid in all artstore branches.

All our hard work has paid off! We’ve not just added a few lines to our Gift section we’ve flooded it with loads of amazing craft kits, fun games and unusual toys to keep you entertained on these dark, cold nights!

There’s something for everyone in our new range, from scale models of the Titanic for Grandpa to Glitter Fairy Craft Kits fit for a princess!

But if you can’t justify treating yourself at this time of year you’re sure to find something for a loved one or perhaps you could embark on some Christmas card making to chase away those blues?

Better still why not browse through our fantastic range of arts and crafts supplies while writing your crafty Christmas list? Don’t forget to treat yourself to a hot chocolate!

1 – The Loyal Glue Gun

Perfect for last minute alterations or quickly repairing your lady gaga costume, that looked so good your pet pooch decided to grab himself a treat. It heats up fast, sticks pretty much everything and dries in seconds. Just be careful not to get hot glue onto the skin. Ouch!

2 – Black & White Face Paint

The emergency costume in two small 15ml pots! These make the perfect tools for a last minute costume and the possibilities are close to endless, from the old classics like a zombie, vampire or Uncle fester to weird and wonderful creations like going the whole hog and painting yourself as a Zebra with head to two in stripes. Perfect for impromptu fancy dress parties or dressing up the one person who didn’t read the invite and turned up in civvies.

3 – Double-sided Sticky Tape

Like the glue gun double sided tape can repair a multitude of mishaps quickly or make alternations to your custom with minimal fuss. Although not as effective as the good old glue gun, double-sided tape has the benefit of fitting in your handbag, under your top hat or inside your wolf suit pockets.

4 – A Super Sharp Set of Scissors

One great way to save time and ease stress when creating your Halloween costume is to invest in a decent set of sharp scissors. A good sharp scissor blade ensures precision cutting and a professional finish while saving you all the wasted time spent gnawing through your fabric and ending up looking more like a pink witch rather than a pretty fairy.

5 – Mastix (Skin Friendly Adhesive)

Safety first! We hate hearing about all the horrible mishaps that turn up in A&E around the Halloween season so if you really must glue an army of toy soldiers to your forehead or a giant horn to your chest please be sure to use skin friendly glue that will come off when you need it to without taking an inch of flesh with it.

We think pencils are so great we have welcomed two adorable additions to the Artstore family. Our almost life size pencils will be skipping all over Scotland during the next month drawing crowds of admirers with their charisma and a box full of artstore.co.uk gifts!

Our lead filled ladies spent last week with the lovely students at City of Glasgow College making a whole host of new friends while giving out freebies and discount forms to every hard-working student that crossed their path. It was a great day out filled with many laughs, biscuits and pencil related puns.

Their adventures continue this week with a trip to Dundee to meet the students of Duncan and Jordanstone College and they can’t wait. Hopefully they’ll see you there!

But our helping hands stretch further than just offering you great quality art materials and letting you keep your beer money.   Artstore’s web monkeys have been grafting away, night and day to make the process of buying your art materials so simple even a monkey could do it! Our brand spanking new College section offers you tailored material lists that let you buy everything you’ll need at the click of a button. What’s more, all the lists have been personally selected by the course tutors themselves, so you won’t be wasting precious pennies on items that aren’t up to scratch.

Worry not if your college course isn’t listed. We’ve been working with art schools, universities and colleges for the last 15 years, so drop a quick e-mail to customerservices@artstore.co.uk listing your course and where you are studying and we’ll lovingly create an art materials list that’ll cover whatever your lecturer has in store for you over the coming year.

Now all you need to worry about is getting to class on time and doing us proud!

But worry not! Although the canvas dent is a little irritating it needn’t reduce you to tears. The solution is so simple anyone can do it!

Step 1:

Find a clean brush and a freshly washed container that can hold hot liquid.

Step 2:

Boil the kettle and fill your receptacle with hot water (might as well make yourself a cuppa while you are at it.)

Step 3:

Turn your canvas so that the back is facing you. Using your clean brush, generously coat the dented area with the hot water. For best results keep your canvas vertical.

Step4:

Enjoy a hard earned cuppa while you wait for your canvas to dry, and the hot water works its magic!

Congratulations to all our Pebeo Studio Acrylic Paint Set winners! There are so many of you we won’t list all the names but if you’re one of the lucky few you’ll have a message from us on either your Facebook, Twitter or e-mail. All the sets are being sent out this week and we look forward to hearing what you all think of these smashing sets.

For those of you who weren’t so lucky to snap up a freebie, you can still pick up your own Pebeo Studio Acrylic super cheap on our website. For those of you who are skeptical about tryng out a new brand of paint we’ve thrown together a quick review so that you get a better of idea of how fantastic Pebeo Studio Acrylic really is:

We adore Pebeo paint for loads of reason but it simple terms, it’s so great because it’s good quality but wonderfully cheap!

Created by a super friendly family run business the Pebeo Paint range offers a variety of colours from earth tones to vibrant fluorescent and iridescent colours. These guys are really passionate about what they do and they are always experimenting with new and innovative paints, colours and effects so keep an eye out for more new product lines.

Their acrylic has a good body to it, not so thick as to clog your brush but it keeps a firm shape and keeps its tips when you need texture. But despite being a student quality paint range (which usual means that substitutes are used instead of the more expensive pigments) the colours don’t get muddy when you mix them.

Another big reason we’re so impressed by Pebeo’s acrylic paint is they are wonderful value for money. Rather than the normal 60ml or 75ml tubes this range offers good quality acrylic paint in 100ml tubes for a similar price!

Now surely you can’t grumble with all that!

The adorable folks that run the group deserve a big hug and a box of chocolates for all the hard work they’ve put into providing Glasgow’s art scene with a much needed alternative life drawing group, offering a chilled out atmosphere and good tunes as well as fantastic models with friendly faces.

Forget the usual stuffy classroom setting of traditional life drawing classes, All the Young Nudes is homed in Glasgow’s super kitsch, extra welcoming Flying Duck. Located just along the road from the Glasgow School of Art we reckon this life drawing group will wipe the memories of even the most horrific life drawing experience. No teachers, no right or wrong way to draw, fine music and a wee glass of wine. What more could a sketcher need?

Just in case you’re still in any doubt here’s 5 very good reasons you must attend!

Reason 1 – Practice Makes Perfect

You wouldn’t expect to pick up a violin for the first time and play a flawless version of a Vivaldi masterpiece, the same principle applies to drawing. While musicians start with Three Blind Mice, it’s so important that all would-be-artists draw regularly and set new challenges so that they develop the technical skill to do justice to all those fantastic ideas in their head when putting them down on paper.

Reason 2 – You Snooze You Lose

Just as body builders need to keep working out to maintain their physique it’s very important to work out your artistic abs, otherwise they’ll turn to mush. The life room is the perfect place to maintain your skill because it allows you to flex your talent and further develop your skills without the pressure of producing a flawless, gallery worthy piece of art.

Reason 3 – A Cure for Artist’s Block

When it comes to artist’s block, something is always better than nothing. Life drawing allows you to start being creative without the pressure of developing concept or finding a grand purpose for what you are doing. It’s also very relaxing therefore is great for anyone who feels anxious about putting their ideas on paper.

Artist’s block or a little bit of self doubt happens to even the most successful artists but it’s important not to let it stop you working. After all, it’s easier to build from the bottom up.

Reason 4 – Learn from Others

We don’t mean you should be comparing drawing or critiquing each other’s work (although this isn’t a terrible idea) but just seeing the tools other people use or grabbing a quick glance at what others are working on can make you want to try out tools and techniques you would never have thought of on your own.  For example, working with a dip pen and ink or using using a coloured paper.

Reason 5 – Getting out of the House/Studio

They say a change is as good as a holiday, so life drawing could be just what you need to breathe some life into your artwork and/or social life.

The class runs every Tuesday at the Flying Duck on Renfield Street from 8-10pm and only costs £4. But if you’re still anxious about attending, remember the All the Young Nudes motto: All welcome (no experience necessary).

Through the warren of rooms and corridors that scale the heights and depths of the Mack building, we’re given a diverse range of work that seem to consciously invite us to look, listen, smell, embrace and participate within immersive spaces more closely than usual.  Perhaps moving away from the tethered boundaries of their departmental disciplines, the graduates have ventured into considering all possibilities within their work – sometimes incorporating multiple techniques such as film, sculpture, performance and photography in their degree show pieces.

Starting off in painting,  Sam Derounian‘s minimal theatrical set comprises from a library of stark self-referential motifs, quoting the work of artist’s such as R B Kitaj and David Hockney to create a playful and colourful naivety. Bold Gothic text and carefully restrained fragments of bright colour appear on a large white background as if carefully copied and pasted fragments on a word document.

Walking past a fading silk screen printed with the Warner Bros slogan ‘That’s All Folks!’ we enter Claudia Nova‘s slightly surreal environment ‘Hollywood Forever’. Confronted with undefined, mountainous human forms that glisten and desperately search against the flickering of an ‘Applause’ neon sign, screams of manic fans elevate elements of Lynch’s Twin Peaks sense of escapism and longing for nostalgia.

Rachel Sharpe’s raised platform covered with the remnants of a car wreck almost invites us to experience Warhol’s notorious red and black car crash screenprint in a virtual space – a blood spilled arrangement of objects are overlooked by copious reflective sets of grinning teeth and looped 1950′s cigar commercials.

Carefully incorporating the Mackintosh buildings own design elements in her space, Zara Idelson‘s beautiful abstract figurative paintings are arranged on a waist level shelf, supported by reproduction copies of the colourful banister rails of the Mack library. It feels quite engaging in light of a building and art school that’s on the brink of a new start in its long term redevelopment and rebuild programme.

Taking centre stage in the Mack gallery, Alice Steffen-Essex’s sculptural lamps studded with white PVC stilettos and cigarettes beam with gold light as they accompany a bed that glows with a glaring intensity – brash, proud and definitely here to stay.

Romany Dear’s canary yellow cassette walkman and headphones bring forward that looking at art has been taken back into the hands of the artist as we’re personally guided through a tour of the Mack gallery. We are taught how to look and even become a piece of work ourselves in the space as we become more self aware  – go on and strike a pose.

What do you do when you see a big red button saying don’t push? You push of course. Euan Ogilvie‘s interactive and rather macabre sculpture toys with human curiosity and interactions as people turn a crank handle contraption, waiting for peoples squeals to begin as dead mice get severely mangled behind a glass pane in a side viewing room. Oooh urgh.

Looking to photography, Jonathan Cottrell’s large scale photographs bring the viewer to the centre of derelict environments, blanketed and dank spaces such as the St.Peter’s Seminary in Cardross are pierced by points of light that offer a lingering beauty and sense of the Sublime.

Departing from conventional photographs, the imaginative creation of Ellinor Forbes, ‘Peachland’, documents an unseen and lingering dream world. Seen only by pets and Ellinor herself, she encourages us to buy a ticket and engage with it – all with the possibility of dining on unicorn meat.

An enjoyable change from the Mack and end to our look round the degree show, Theresa McCafferty’s narrative-driven bespoke pieces conjure up a dark and repulsive vision of  macabre Victoriana. Through the use of uncanny materials such as human hair, found photographs and bound book covers, she bases her pieces on traditional items such as a gentleman’s pocket watch or a ladies’ locket.