Hi all! If you recall, last month I posted (see here) about a brand new art subscription box service called Smart Art! This new subscription box (or one-time off) service delivers a set of art materials, based upon an artist of the month, at your doorstep! Smart Art provides artists with diverse high quality materials that inspire and nourish creativity. Each subscriber receives a box featuring a different artist that highlights their time period,  sample and full sized art supplies, a suggested project and an explanatory pamphlet introducing a new art medium.

So, I recently received my first box and I am really excited to share it with you!

When you flip open the lid, they have some instructions on what to do to make the most of your box and interact via social media. Plus, they have a contest going on to win a free ($49.99 value) Smart Art box!

Here’s the first look! They included an informative pamphlet with information on the artist, Andy Warhol, Pop Art movement and the materials included.

They even included a suggested project and some examples…

In the box, they included a set of four Liquitex Heavy Body Acrylic Paints in primary colors: Titanium White, Yellow Medium Azo, Quinacridone Crimson and Phthalocyanine Blue. I’m a big fan of the brand Liquitex (these 2 oz bottles run approx $4-6 each depending on the store) so it was good to see a quality brand and product.

Also included was a 10-well paint palette, a simple plastic palette that you can use to mix colors on without them drying out too quick.

Next to that is a plastic spray bottle, which they mentioned you should fill with water and spray on the painting to “refresh” the paint as acrylics dry quickly. I didn’t end up using this as a spray, but dipped my paintbrush in to refresh it instead.

Behind those items is the 8×10 canvas panel to paint on, which was pretty sturdy, however I would have liked to see a larger canvas and a hook to hang the final piece of art up on the wall. It’s a good size for a fun project, but is fairly small when mounted up on my wall.

Finally, we have a set of 3 Princeton Paint Brushes, 2 flat and 1 rounded, in different sizes. These are fairly good brushes, however some of the bristles began to fall out as I was painting. I am really happy they included different sizes as they make a major difference when painting broad areas versus details and small spaces.

Here’s the entire set of items in my Smart Art Box! I was really happy to see that they had a whole theme laid out: Andy Warhol, Pop Art, Primary Colors, etc, as well as almost all of the materials needed to create this project. It was refreshing to see some quality brands like Liquitex and Blick (that’s where the canvas was from), and Pop Art is one of my favorite styles of art. The only room for improvement would be the paint brushes, as they’re definitely good beginner brushes, but as an artist, I would prefer other bristles as these fell apart easily.

Here’s my masterpiece that I created with all of the materials included in my Smart Art Box! I’m not a huge fan of bold colors like yellow and blue, so I mixed up red and white to create different shades of pink to remake my “Audrey Hepburn” themed painting. I was really happy with the outcome and am intrigued to see what they choose for their next box!

If you’re interested in Smart Art, sign up now at http://www.smartartbox.com/get-on-board and receive a 20% discount for life by using coupon code 20OFFLIFE or code INSPIRATION !