Visit Us in St. Louis

Visit the pocket-sized, in-person version of our store in St. Louis' vibrant Grove neighborhood. We've got all the essentials on display up front, and our full warehouse is in back—so you can see & buy any item from the website.

We stock a very wide range of supplies for watercolor painting, acrylic & oil painting, and drawing. We also offer a great selection for mixed media, writing, calligraphy, bookbinding, sewing, knitting, and embroidery.

We are nationally known as a watercolor manufacturer (under our Federal Color brand) and we have a large collection of exclusive items from our partners in Japan and Europe.

More details about what you'll find on Papin Street? Of course:

PAINTING SUPPLIES

  • We are the flagship store for Federal Color products, which are made here in our St. Louis warehouse. You'll find our Tonic watercolors in every size and color in-store.
  • We carry the full range of Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors in tubes and sticks, plus the full range of Daniel Smith Extra Fine Gouache. These American-made colors offer more variety than any other line in the world (300 colors and counting!)
  • We stock most of the major paint lines from Schmincke, the legendary German color house, including Mussini oil paint, PRIMAcryl recycled acrylics, and Horadam Watercolor in half and full pans. Horadam Gouache is another house favorite, with incredible pigmentation levels we haven't seen in any other gouache line.
  • We stock all the colors and sets of Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolors, a bright and fun line of semi-opaque colors that have been top sellers for years.
  • We carry American Easel wood panels (made in Oregon) and a variety of canvas options from premium manufacturers
  • We've got all the accessories, from our selection of beautiful handmade brushes (mostly made in Italy) to our huge number of palettes and palette knives. We import RGM palette knives direct from Italy and have the largest selection in the US.

DRAWING SUPPLIES

  • We proudly stock the Midwest's best selection of Japanese pens, pencils, and stationery, including hard-to-find items like Kakimori nibs and Teranishi inks.
  • We manufacture our own line of liquid color — Optimist Pigment Ink.
  • We're paper experts — we carry the best brands, like Fabriano, Arches, and Hahnemuhle, and we can explain the differences between each pad. We have hundreds of paper options available in store.
  • You'll find an astonishing number of cedar-cased pencils, from hard drafting pencils to ultra-soft Japanese calligraphy pencils. If you love the smell of a freshly sharpened No. 2, you'll love our store
  • We stock every kind of pen: rollerballs, fountain pens, gel pens, fine-liners, pigment pens, watercolor brush pens, calligraphy pens, and pretty much any other type you can think of
  • Check out our collection of vintage nibs, dating back to 1900, available for just a few dollars a piece in never-used condition. You can actually take home a piece of history when you visit us!

FIBER & CRAFT

We've recently added fiber arts and craft supplies to our selection! Keep looking for more additions in this new department, but come in right now and see:

  • High-quality yarns made from cotton and wool
  • A collection of essential fabrics, like denim, broadcloth, and flannel
  • All the notions you need for sewing, knitting, mending, and crochet
  • Lovely imports from Japan, including a large selection of sashiko supplies
  • Garment patterns from the experts at Merchant & Mills
  • A huge selection of how-to books

THE BOOKSHOP

We are so proud to be booksellers — it's been a core part of our mission since we opened in 2015. Visit us to browse every title on the website (we keep them all in front) including collection highlights like:

  • Our world-class library of art instruction books, covering painting, drawing, printmaking, needlecrafts, photography, design, collage, and every other art discipline we could find a book about
  • A generous selection of art history and contemporary-art titles for inspiration
  • A curated selection of poetry, literature, and theory