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| - Utrecht and I have a complex relationship. The "competitor prices" they display always seem to come from an alternate universe, and merchandise isn't so much organized as stuffed where there's room (which isn't necessarily bad if you're aware of it), but they've got a good selection, friendly employees, and--most importantly--the house brand.
The whole reason to shop at Utrecht, catalog or retail, is for Utrecht's house-brand paint. They generally beat competing brands in price handily. Their acrylics are made in the US. Quality in the Artist grade paints is top-notch while the "Studio Series" (which is the most euphemistic and optimistic student grade moniker I've ever seen) ranges, as do most student-grade paints, from decent to mind-blowingly terrible. Skip straight to Artist for difficult colors like yellows if you know what's good for you.
This store maintains an excellent supply of acrylic and oil Utrecht paints in both grades in just about every color you could possibly want. They may even carry the full range. Outside of Utrecht-branded paints, mediums, and substrates, though, you're almost certainly going to get better pricing at Arizona Art Supply. And while Utrecht stocks a wide variety of house-brand brushes, almost to the detriment of name brand selection, they're probably the crappiest brushes I've ever used. I'd only buy Utrecht brushes for something that's going to destroy them, like resist or masking fluid. But for paint, gesso, mediums, canvas, or paper? Definitely swing by Utrecht.
Pro Tip: Don't even think about shopping here at the start of a semester or near finals. The entire ASU College of Fine Arts--wait, sorry, Michael Crow took that behind a shed; Institute For Design--descends upon Utrecht like a horde of locusts, leaving empty shelves in its wake.
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