For years a fixture on a Historic Core block of Main Street in downtown, Raw Materials Art Supplies have always colored a little outside the lines. In addition to their expansive and thorough inventory and friendships in the art community, they’ve sponsored exhibitions in their storefront windows, offsite plein air painting festivals, educational and philanthropic pursuits in the wider downtown neighborhood, and any number of other art-booster type situations. And now they’re moving — but don’t fret, they’re going to a much bigger space and it’s only right around the corner on Los Angeles Street.

The new location will be open for business as of August 15, with an Art Happy Hour on Friday, August 16 (5-7 p.m.); amid drinks and snacks, all are invited to come try their hand at replicating the night’s featured work of art, courtesy of the ghost of Vincent van Gogh. In fact it is just this sort of workshop/class gathering model that Raw Materials hopes to do more of in their new big digs. Art Happy hours are just $20, and fun events like denim dip-dyeing on September 1 are free; but master classes, such as oil painting with Salomón Huerta on Saturday, September 7, are limited attendance and pricier tickets ($100-$120) are required.

All of which brings us to the central question of the moment. Do we live in a world where David Arquette is the new Bob Ross? It seems that the answer is yes. Yes, we do. And on August 24, Raw Materials will prove it. That’s when Arquette, a Certified Ross Instructor (CRI®) — because that’s a thing — leads a two-hour intensive instructing the pigment-curious of any (or no) skill level in the mysterious ways of America’s favorite, and happiest, landscape painter. You get an official certificate of course completion, and as always, tuition includes supplies like paint, brushes and easels. But it’s BYO happy trees.

Raw Materials Art Supplies, 645 S. Los Angeles St., downtown; rawmaterialsLA.com.

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