Blick Art Materials

All chains are not the same. This location feels like a well stocked shop in a nice town.
Unlike the Broadway location.
While I pine for Meineger’s in Denver still, this Blick (and I originally came here under the Utrecht name) is very, very good.
No superior «I work in an art store» attitude, (Newsflash, I don’t have to. I earn money from making art), no condescending hipster garbage, and genuine assistance when I’m getting supplies for someone else, who does different work.
I feel comfortable wandering these aisles, as I procrastinate from whatever is on the project board at home.
It’s also laid out intuitively enough that I can dash in and grab what I need.
Like I do that often. This place is a spa for the creative brain, while encouraging the creative brain to salivate.
Onto the stock: great selection of paints at various price points. From middle school student to the pro with (sigh, if only) a full range of Golden acrylics.
Variety of papers, canvas styles, stretched, rolls and stretcher bars, boards. Some easels. Might look online as well and see about ordering to pick up here.
Easy paid parking on the street behind and one block down.
Not a lot of crafty kit like options, but a fair selection of artisan supplies, from print inks to drafting pens, rulers, curves.
Some fabric art dyes. Good quality Jaquard, not RIT.
A solid 4.7 stars.
Extra cool? Just in case what you want or need isn’t here, there’s another Blick close by near the highway.

Staff was great, I definitely recommend Blick!

I get my watercolor supplies and colored pens and pencils from this place. The staff is friendly and have good suggestions for product substitutes. I like that they have a range of brands and prices for different products so that you can stay within your budget. Their Le Pen pens are very sleek and perfect for outlining or even writing. Hard to stop buying them!

The store is very small and although they have a few people working at one time rarely does anyone ask if you need help finding anything. Prices are standard Utrecht pricing, expensive. Sometimes they have good deals on their sale/​clearance items but they do not have a great selection otherwise.

I stopped in today to pick up some stuff, and they have really increased their inventory from the last time I have been… maybe about 2 months ago? Awesome! Still not five-​stars worth, but I would maybe bump the rating up to 4.5…
They made their shelves taller, and accordingly, more stuff has arrived to fill the extra shelf space. I retract what I said about some of the holes in their paint supply– Although they still have more acrylic than anything else, they now have a decent selection of all things oil, gouache, and watercolor, too. Also, they have a wider variety of quality than I remember. And, da da da daaaa, they now stock TWO whole encaustic colors: red and black. I hope that means there are even more to come! I also found some cold wax medium, so that’s cool.
And, they have a whole wall of bulk canvas and stretcher bars! I don’t know if it is new or not… but I never noticed before and now at least I can say the selection was very front and center.
I also found a lot of ink stuff that I would normally buy somewhere else, but now can maybe pick up here, closer to home.
SO, I am super excited about their adding to the inventory! Still not comprehensive, but it is definitely getting better, and I hope this location will continue to increase what they stock!

Really good art supplies here, even for a novice like myself. The staff is really helpful and friendly, and don’t try to upsell you on anything. I was looking for some basic brushes and colors for my girlfriend, and the salesperson told me I could buy middle-​of-​the-​road items and they’d be just as good as the higher end ones. Appreciated the help and would go back if I needed anything else. Parking is pretty difficult in Berkeley in general, so be prepared to walk a few blocks to get here… but definitely worth it.

The only reason I gave this place 2 stars was because their prices are average.
This place RARELY has anything I need. When I do find things I need it’s a miracle.
I only go here because it’s the closest store to my apartment.
They need to expand their selection and get a better staff. The girls are usually helpful, but the male employees I’ve ended up getting help from in the past had no idea what half the materials were for.

Just had a terrible experience with this store — I purchased a load of equipment from the store but ended up not using two of the card boards I had purchased. They had a few dents to the edges when I bought but I needed them urgently and the assistant assured me I would be able to return them if I didn’t use them.
I went to return them today in exactly the condition I had received them in and whilst patiently waiting in line the check out guy says «I’m not taking those boards» without even talking to me first. I tried to have a conversation but he wasn’t interested — absolutely zero customer service. Seriously disappointing, needless to say I won’t be shopping here any more and will be recommending my friends go elsewhere.

Cool individual color pencils… Lots of paint supplies and canvas-​y stuff. Not so much the place to go if you want to scrapbook. They did not have patterned paper =(
Came here looking for Micro pens — they hide them behind the register for some odd reason. Prices were pretty average.
The cashier lady was probably new when I came, because she was not seem like she knew what she was doing. She was nice though!
Seems like they leave coupons on the register? Look for those before you make your purchase!
Yay for being super close to Trader Joes !! :)))

Utrecht got bought out by Blick. They no longer have the Utrecht Card, and now take Blick Cards and Coupons.
They’re keeping Utrecht with all the Utrecht brushes. Which is awesome for me cause I really love their brushes.

Love this place, huge selection! Super friendly and quite knowledgable staff!

Such an awesome art supply store. They have great prices and a huge selection of products.
I love their selection of canvases, all shapes and sizes for the best prices I’ve seen. Wayy cheaper than most art supply stores.
Definitely worth checking out if you’re an artist on a budget!

When I was taking my art history classes, I needed a few art supplies. The instructor I took two classes with wanted us to create our own art works. For those of us who wanted to do collages, that was fine with her.
So as to where the heck to get serious art supplies now that Amsterdam Art is history and no more. Of course, Utrecht! I stopped by to get a couple of colour wheels (Large and Small) as well as a big poster board for my collage project. I had to do an art history project on me, myself, and I – MOI! So I did a thousand year collage of my favorite things, one item from every year of ma vie dans Berkeley et SF.
I like they have locations both in Berkeley and San Francisco, one in Berkeley and two locations in San Francisco. I also like they have a reward card for students. And there are coupons and announcements of special sales.
I am overdue for a visit at all three SF Bay Area Utrecht Art Supplies stores. Must return ASAP. I highly recommend Utrecht Art Supplies for all artists, from beginning to expert levels.
And Utrecht is the name of a city in the Netherlands.
Fresh Review #27 of 100 Unilocal!for 2013.

It’s an artist’s heaven. Art supplies by the dozens and different options too. Can’t help but be seduced by the endless number of pencils, pens, paint, chalk, charcoal, sketch books, easels, etc etc! Prices are pretty affordable too I think. There’s a hard-​bound sketchbook there that I’ve normally seen at other places for $ 12… here, it’s on sale for $ 6! There’s a few others that’s less than that! And they don’t look like a shoddy sketchbook either

Check-​in deal is great!
Friendly and helpful staffs

Very useful store and staff! I found the color pencils I was looking for and they were on sale too. I also got a student discount. Everything is so nicely organized. I even got tips on how to make my colored pencil drawings better.

First off. the employees are extremely helpful and always happy! I love the great selection and the prices are amazing! Where else can I buy 15 – 20 canvas’s different sizes for under $ 100!!! This is a great store for all your needs, from portolios, canvas’s, pens, charcoal, acrylic, oils, paper, mediums, brushes. EVERYTHING! One stop shop. I can litereally buy soo much in this store! MY FAV!
I heart you Utrecht!

Utrecht is the best art store in town. They have the best paints, the best everything! The people who work there are the best, too, they are the smartest people I have ever asked about art materials, or anything for that matter. They should all be famous and read about in the future.
Go Utrecht!

Ahh, the Utrecht Art Mega store. I wish Davis had something like this when I studied Art way back when. More selection and cheaper prices which is a win/​win when you’re a student. It’s like being a kid in a candy store. Now they have an insanely large online catalog to boot

Van Gogh once said, «If you hear a voice within you saying, ‘You are not a painter,’ then by all means paint… and that voice will be silenced.»
Damn straight. I almost scrapped the idea of attempting an artsy little birthday present project because of that damn voice. Yes, my watercolor pieces I’ve done so far for it probably won’t sell for a dime, but as long as my creative juices are flowing, I’m happy.
But walking into Utrecht made me nostalgic for the time when art was a big part of my childhood and art prizes padded my wee little ego in elementary school. Oh, those were the days. They have a good selection of materials all decently priced, even though the place isn’t very large. Customer service was fine, although I could have been jipped a few extra bucks had I not seen the other canvas papers in the file drawers that were priced much cheaper. One of the workers only directed me to some fancy canvas papers that were close to $ 5, when I just needed a small poster size for $ 1.
I personally don’t see myself coming here that often unless I decide to do another project on my own. But it was still nice to drop in, grab my supplies, go home and watercolor for hours. It felt pretty darn good. I gotta take a stab at it more often.