As April winds down, and with our arts-themed issue still displayed on coffee tables and magazine racks about town, we got to thinking about these last days of stuck-at-home life and the various creative projects we’ve tried to accomplish—some to great effect! It all has us itching to learn more about the tools, tints and tones available to the professional and amateur alike, so we reached out to Simone Burke, founder of Mo’s Art Supply, to give us the inside scoop on some of the Jefferson Highway shop’s lesser known—but beautifully handy—art supplies.

1. Golden Heavy Body Acrylic Paint in new fluorescent colors

“Golden just added new colors to their Heavy Body acrylic paints range, which is a big deal, because there’s traditionally been very little access to fluorescence other than in craft kinds of paints. The brand finally pulled the trigger, and I think people are going to be excited to see a new, bright color range in acrylics.”

2. Vivia Colorsheets portable watercolors

“These are super flat little booklets featuring squares of color on each page—the squares are the actual paint. All you need is a wet brush and it’s just like activating color in a pan. You could literally keep this in your back pocket or stashed in a sketchbook and take it with you wherever you want. They’re really great quality, and made in India, where people have been doing a lot of hard work developing these. This is truly a new product that we’ve been super excited about recently.”

3. Indigo Artpapers Handmade Watercolor Wiropads with natural deckled edges

“When you tear these pages out, they come out with a fourth deckled edge (that’s the rough-textured, imprecise cut you see on the fore edges of some books, for example), instead of getting messed up by the spiral rings, or having to cut them out precisely. If you want to paint in a sketchbook and possibly have a finished piece out of it, this is a great option. Normally you’d have to buy a whole set of expensive papers to get a deckled edge like this, but now you have it in a smaller, portable format.”

4. Zebra Zensations mechanical colored pencils

“These are often marketed to kids, but adults can definitely use them too. I thought it was interesting that I hadn’t seen other brands really do this before, except in red and blue for architecture drafting purposes and the like. You can refill these easily, and I just thought it was pretty innovative.”

5. Molotow Liquid Chrome paint markers

“These were developed for urban artists working on cement and walls and murals and that kind of thing, but they also works on canvas, or wood panels, or really anything. You don’t have to go back and forth over each stroke—it’s got great coverage and comes out in a super, super metallic shiny silver.”

6. Tommy Art DIY Paint System mineral paints

“This is kind of like the next generation of chalk paint, or at least paint for certain kinds of crafty projects. It doesn’t require a lot of prep, and you can easily repaint a lamp or a picture frame or whatever you want to restore. They also come in metallics, like a nice copper color we’ve heard made a really nice, authentic finish on an outdoor lantern, and cost the same amount, no matter the color.”

7. The Glitter Guy’s quirky craft glitter

“This has been a big phenomenon on social media like TikTok. It’s a crazy range of wacky-named colors that has only recently been released into the retail market.”

8. Squirrel hair watercolor brushes

“Squirrel hair brushes are a highbrow product. With spring bringing in watercolor season and more opportunities to paint outside, I thought I’d mention these, since they’re beautiful. Expensive, yes, but they perform like nothing else. They hold a lot of water for excellent washes, but they’re also great for detail work since they can come to a fine point. Definitely an indulgence item, but worth it.”

9. Bristle Magic brush cleaner

“This product is actually made right here in New Orleans, which is really cool. Honestly, we used to buy it through a distributor, not knowing that it was a locally made brand, so once the distributor decided to quit, we can buy directly from them. A really high-quality product that supports a Louisiana business.”

Founded in Covington, Mo’s Art Supply now has locations in New Orleans and Baton Rouge as well. Find out more about the store on its website here.