What the Heck is "Poster Colour" & Finding Art Supplies in Bangkok
As friends and followers well know, I am constantly drawing, painting, and (soon) tattooing. After a hiatus from about 10 years old to 30 years old, I dove back into artwork with both feet at the start of the COVID 19 pandemic in 2019. The story of why I took a break is for another time, but as someone somewhere once said, "comparison is the death of joy." I sometimes struggle with that concept even today.
Moving to Bangkok has been an incredible journey, but not one without challenges. As an artist, I'm always looking for different tools and techniques to explore and evolve my creations. What started as heavy acrylic painting on canvas morphed to pencil sketching, to markers, to intaglio etching, to screenprinting, to watercolor, to liquid acrylic, to tattoos and back and forth a zillion times. All those techniques require different canvases, tools and mediums. Turns out, when you move halfway across the world, the 'ol standards from America become much more to acquire reliably and cost-effectively. Read on to learn more about what I've learned on the Thai approach to the artistic methods I've grown to love. Early disclaimer: I have not scoured the entire 605.7 square miles of Bangkok metro for supplies so give me a little grace for mistakes/learning.
Stationery Stores?!
The first thing you have to get over is nomenclature. In the US, you've got stalwarts like Blick, Michael's, even the Christo-clowns at Hobby Lobby in a pinch. Of course Amazon is ubiquitous. They're all called art supply stores, exactly what you'd think. I am creating art, therefore I need supplies. Where do I buy them? At an art supply store. In Bangkok (again, disclaimer) everything "art supply" redirects to "stationery store." Stationery? In 2024? Yes. This means instead of a cornucopia of media & brushes, you're dealing with roughly 1/4 art, 1/4 office supplies, 1/4 school supplies, and 1/4 printers.
Import Fees
The next hurdle is pricing. A lot of materials are made elsewhere and therefore subject to import fees if they're present in Thailand at all. In America, these fees seem to be minimal or at least operating on an economy of scale that keeps prices low-ish. The most glaring example is Arches watercolor paper; the best in the biz when it comes to painting tattoo flash. Brief shoutout to my Instagram page if you're interested in seeing some of my flash. At Blick, a 20 sheet block of 9x12 inch Arches cold press is about $45. At BeTrend in Bangkok, a 12 sheet block of 9x12 is $67! So expensive they keep it locked up in a special case at a mall filled with Prada, Gucci, and Rolex stores. For some items, you can order them from Amazon and Amazon will refund the import fees. Ultimately my Arches paper came from Amazon instead of a local store or site. It took a few conversations with customer service, but I was able to get my watercolor paper for the same price as in the US.
What the H3ll Does this Label Say? Why Don't They Tell You If It's Ink or Paint?
Labels. So many words, so few in English. This makes sense, but you've gotta have your translate app at the ready because unless you recognize the brand from abroad and know their products intimately you're not going to be able to discern what is what. I bought a few bottles of what I thought was liquid acrylic ink and it was thicccccc acrylic paint. Not conducive for my current projects. So, photos over and over. Often that led to "this is not what I am looking for," which led to another trip to the store to re-assess stock and take another round of photos for investigation. It was certainly not like strolling into Blick, filling up a basket, and walking out ready to execute. Resourcefulness and patience are of the utmost importance.
Shopping Online and Using Translation Apps Go Hand in Hand
Hunting online can be a similar quagmire. Some products get listed with English words and details, but there's a fair amount that only have Thai listings. This means you're searching in English, then using translate, and searching again in Thai. It's not just descriptions, it's also listing names. I had more than a few instances of thinking "this doesn't exist here" only to stumble across what I needed written only in Thai. It's not the end of the world, but it adds a few steps to the process for every search. You also need to employ some "creative thinking" when interpreting the results. Listen, I love that I can take a picture and have a rectangle in my pocket help me understand what it says BUT sometimes the results are insane. Multiply that across a few different shopping sites and what was as simple as a 2 minute search and buy for ink caps becomes much longer.
Mini Painting Online Store to the Rescue
If you've made it this far, we're approaching the happy ending. While I've learned some products I am used to just aren't sold here (looking at you Dr. PH Martin's Radiant Watercolors, you could at least return my emails) and I'll have to pay the import fees if I want them, others are. Eventually I found a tabletop gaming store on a platform called Shopee that had the liquid acrylics I was looking for at a reasonable price. Well, not the exact brand, but close enough to count as a win. So I basically bought a bottle of every color they had! When they arrived a few days later well-packaged and unbroken, I exhaled significantly. Another step in the art journey complete. I never thought I'd be looking at Warhammer figurine supply stores to get tattoo flash ink, but sometimes our saviors come from the most unexpected places.
PS: Poster colour seems to be cheap, thick, washable acrylic paint that's used for elementary school art projects. So if your child needs to do a diorama about photosynthesis or a poster about George Washington Carver, look it up.