Bromleys Art Supplies

Bromleys Art Supplies Supplying high quality art materials, underpinned by unparalleled customer service and advice, since the 1990s.
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Mail order art materials with great discounts and excellent service! Based in Bolton, England, Ken Bromley Art Supplies came about as a result of the popularity of the famous Ken Bromley Perfect Paper Stretcher. In 1994, in response to feedback from artists who had bought the stretcher board, we began to supply watercolour paper for use with the board, a service we called ‘Paper by Post’. The succ

ess of this service lead us to expand our product range to include paints, brushes and accessories. We are continually growing our product range in response to our customer feedback and continue to offer great discounts on all our ranges. We also strive to offer the best customer service possible, as a family run business, we take pride in the personalised service we offer, listening to our customers and doing everything we can to make buying from us a great experience.

25/05/2026

❤️ Some pigments just have a story - and Naphthol Crimson is one of them.

Its journey begins in a German chemical plant in 1912, where it started life as a cotton dye before finding its way into artists' paints, lipsticks, printing inks and eventually onto Mark Rothko's palette. When Rothko's Harvard murals were examined after years on display, the Naphthol colours had held their colour perfectly - while the untested pigment beside it had faded beyond repair. That's the kind of lightfastness you can trust.

On the palette it's bold, intensely staining and full of surprises. It looks warm straight from the tube but it's actually a cool red - mix it with white and a blue-grey bias starts to show. Push it with yellow and you'll find some beautifully dense, complex oranges.

Made from a single pigment (PR170) and available across the Liquitex Pro and Basics ranges in multiple formats, this is a colour that rewards anyone who takes the time to really dig into it.

What are you mixing with Naphthol Crimson at the moment? Share below 👇

artsupplies.co.uk/lqxacy

There's something really special about saving up for an art material you've had your eye on for months. It could have be...
25/05/2026

There's something really special about saving up for an art material you've had your eye on for months. It could have been a set of professional watercolours, a sable brush that felt completely out of reach, or a beautiful studio easel. Whatever it was, we'd bet it changed something about how you worked. Good tools have a habit of opening doors.

So tell us - what was the first art material you ever saved up specifically to buy? And was it everything you hoped it would be? Share your story in the comments 👇

🎨 It's one of the most common questions we get asked about oil painting - and it's one that doesn't have a quick or sati...
24/05/2026

🎨 It's one of the most common questions we get asked about oil painting - and it's one that doesn't have a quick or satisfying answer: how do you actually know when your painting is dry?

The short version: it takes a lot longer than most people expect. Unlike watercolour or acrylics, oil paint doesn't dry through evaporation - it cures. The oil content of the paint oxidises slowly over time, forming a hard, stable, enamel-like film. A few things worth knowing:

🔹 Touch dry can happen in days or weeks - but this is just the surface. Underneath, the paint can remain soft and vulnerable for much longer
🔹 Thin, lean applications can cure fully in as little as a couple of months
🔹 Heavy impasto work could take well beyond 12 months to cure completely
🔹 Environment matters - warmth and airflow help; cold and damp conditions slow things right down

One handy test: take a cotton bud soaked lightly in solvent and gently rub it on an inconspicuous corner. If no colour lifts, you're likely good to go.

It's something you either learn to love about oils or find endlessly maddening - there's rarely a middle ground! How do you manage drying time in your practice? Do you work on multiple pieces at once? Tell us in the comments. 👇

artsupplies.co.uk/oilpaint

23/05/2026

🤎 There are some colours that feel like they've always belonged in a watercolour range - and Vandyke Brown is absolutely one of them. So we were pleased to see Rosa include their interpretation as one of ten new additions to their gallery watercolour line.

Named after Flemish master Anthony van Dyck, whose work became so associated with rich, earthy browns that the colour eventually took his name, Rosa's modern version uses a blend of Synthetic Red Iron Oxide and Carbon Black - a highly lightfast pairing that improves significantly on the original natural pigment, which had a reputation for poor permanence over time.

What makes it so interesting to work with is the range it offers within a single colour. In mass tone it's deep, dense and atmospheric - brilliant for dark foliage, shadowed bark or adding real weight to a composition. Dilute it and something warmer and more golden emerges, working beautifully to introduce warmth into skin tones or soften portrait shadows.

Have you tried any of the new Rosa colours yet? We'd love to hear what you make of them. 👇

artsupplies.co.uk/vandykebrown

📚 There's a version of sketchbook life that looks immaculate - clean studies, neat notes, perfectly composed pages. And ...
23/05/2026

📚 There's a version of sketchbook life that looks immaculate - clean studies, neat notes, perfectly composed pages. And then there's real life, where paint bleeds through, pages stick together and one wrong mark feels like it's ruined everything.

How you deal with it says a lot about your relationship with your sketchbook. Do you carefully stick a fresh sheet over the mistake and start again? Rip the page out without looking back? Leave it there as an honest record of the process? Or do you lean into it and let the accident become part of something new?

There's no wrong answer here - some of the most interesting sketchbook pages are the ones that went sideways first. How do you deal with sketchbook disasters? Let us know. 👇

✏️ There are certain art materials that become part of the furniture - products so excellent that they stop feeling like...
22/05/2026

✏️ There are certain art materials that become part of the furniture - products so excellent that they stop feeling like a purchase and just become part of how you work. The Derwent Drawing Pencil Collection, now celebrating its 40th anniversary, is very much one of those.

Designed around the colours of the natural world - muted earths, soft purples, warm sepias, dusty greens - the Drawing range has always felt like it was built around careful observation. It captures those subtle, in-between hues you actually see in bark, lichen, stone and fading light. The pencils themselves are beautifully soft, smooth and wonderfully easy to layer and blend.

40 years is a remarkable milestone and it's one that's only reached by products that genuinely earn the loyalty of the people using them. Are the Drawing Pencils a staple in your kit? We'd love to hear what you use them for. ✏️ 🎉

artsupplies.co.uk/dwdrawingsale

💧 Watercolour has this slightly unfair reputation for being impossible to control - and while it does have its own logic...
21/05/2026

💧 Watercolour has this slightly unfair reputation for being impossible to control - and while it does have its own logic, a lot of that feeling comes from simply not having the right techniques in your toolkit yet.

At the beginning of the month we shared four essential techniques every new watercolourist should know: flat wash, graded wash, wet on wet and wet on dry. Now we're back with part two, covering three more that can genuinely transform your practice once they click:

🔹 Variegated wash - letting colours flow and merge on the paper for those beautiful, unpredictable blooms of colour
🔹 Glazing - building depth and luminosity through transparent, fully dried layers applied one on top of another
🔹 Dry brushing - using a barely loaded brush to create texture and broken marks that water-heavy techniques simply can't achieve

Master these alongside the first four and you'll have a really solid foundation to work from. Are you working through these techniques? Which one made the biggest difference to your watercolour practice? We'd love to know. 👇

Read the full guide here 👉 artsupplies.co.uk/tenwc

💥 Our Acrylic Sale is now live - and it's running for six full weeks, with up to 33% off across Winsor & Newton and Liqu...
20/05/2026

💥 Our Acrylic Sale is now live - and it's running for six full weeks, with up to 33% off across Winsor & Newton and Liquitex Professional Acrylics and Mediums.

If you've been debating the jump from student to professional grade, this is the time to do it. The difference in pigment load is genuinely significant - richer, more intense colour, better coverage and choice in consistency that makes painting more rewarding. And if you've been curious about mediums - gels, pastes, flow improvers - this is a great window to experiment without the usual outlay.

Two ranges we use and recommend regularly, now at a brilliant price. What are you picking up? Tell us in the comments! 👇

Shop here 👉 artsupplies.co.uk/acrylicsale

20/05/2026

🎨 Masking fluid and acrylics - not a combination that immediately springs to mind, but one that's worth exploring. Most artists keep masking fluid firmly in the watercolour corner, but used alongside acrylic inks or thinly applied acrylics it opens up a whole new creative potential.

The principle is the same: apply masking fluid to the areas you want to protect, work freely over the top, then peel it back to reveal clean, untouched paper beneath. Crisp geometric lines, sharp edges, reserved highlights - masking fluid handles all of it in a way that's almost impossible to replicate freehand.

The key is keeping your acrylic applications fluid and light - heavy, thick paint makes removal tricky and can damage your surface. Keep things light and let the masking do the heavy lifting.

Have you ever used masking fluid outside of watercolour? We'd love to hear how you've got on with it. 👇

artsupplies.co.uk/lqxmask

19/05/2026

There is nothing quite like the energy at the International Watercolour Masters. 🌟 We are incredibly proud to be a sponsor of this year's event, and our team is having a blast meeting so many passionate artists!

Take a little peek at our stall, the stunning exhibition space, and a glimpse of the incredible masterclasses happening around us.

Whether you need to top up your favourite pans, grab a new brush, or just want to talk shop, our team is ready to welcome you. We’ll be here running our stall every day until Friday 22nd May. See you soon! 🎨❤️

P.S. Can't make it to the event in person? Don't worry! You can catch all the incredible artist demos streaming online via IWMTV so you don’t miss a thing.

⚡ There's a kind of electricity that comes with seeing a piece of art that really gets you. It doesn't always happen in ...
19/05/2026

⚡ There's a kind of electricity that comes with seeing a piece of art that really gets you. It doesn't always happen in famous galleries - sometimes it's a small painting tucked away in a local exhibition, or something you come across online at half eleven at night and can't quite shake.

Those moments have a habit of changing things. You come away wanting to try a new colour palette, tackle a subject you'd always avoided, or experiment with a medium you'd previously written off. The pieces that stop us in our tracks are often the ones that quietly push our own practice forward.

We'd love to hear yours. What's one piece of artwork - painting, drawing, print, sculpture, anything - that you've never quite forgotten? Tell us about it. 👇

Address

Unit 13 Lodge Bank Estate, Crown Lane, Horwich
Bolton
BL65HY

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+441204690114

Website

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