Art suplies for beginners

Hello and welcome back,

I personally fell in love with drawing as a kid and improved ever since. But starting out it can be challenging when buying art suplies. With doing any art medium it’s always about trying to do new things. I personally draw with pensel, alcohol markers, water color/aquarel and since a few years with an Ipad on procreate. But before commiting on such an expensive purchage like a iPad.

When starting out there are a few things I would recommend to get. So keep on reading for my recommendation.

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Paper

One of the first things to invest in is right quality drawing paper.

I personally love Strathmore Mixed Media paper with vellum surface, because you can use all kinds of art mediums on them, from pencils, markers to watercolour.

But if you are starting out and just use pencils and markers, for cheaper and more paper you can get, Strathmore Schets Pad. This paper is thicker than normal paper and perfect to draw on. I personally started out with this kind of paper.

Sketch Pencils

To start out I would recommend getting a set of grey sketch pencils. In those sets the pencils are of different thickness and hardness, this is a great way to test those out and find what kind of you prefer. Those pencils are also great for making grey toned drawings.

I personally have a pen that works as a pencil from Faber-Castell, TK-FINE VARIO L. 0.07. The 0.07 is the thickness for the fillings that can be used in this pencil.

Colour pencils

When looking for coloured pencils there are a few things you need to look out for. First is the type of pencil, there are different types and this has to do with how they created the colored core. In the beginning try to avoid the watercolored pencils.

I personally love oil colour pencils, those are very beginner friendly and come in a wide variety of colours and price range. To try them out start out with small sets like 15 colors. The most professional and expensive brand is Faber-Castell. I personally just bought mine from Aliexpress with an different brand.

Outline pens

For this I can only recommend one brand called Pigma Micron. To start out you only need the 0.5 pen, which is the normal thickness for most pens.

I have a set of 5 pens from them with different thicknesses. The thicker the tip the thicker the line, but the thinner the tip the more fragile the pen is. My smalless one is 005, but I broke the tip a couple of times already, so each time had to buy it again.

Markers

I love using markers to draw. In general there are two types water markers and alcohol markers. For me personally water markers are a no go. I don’t like those. I love alcohol markers. Now these are a bit more expensive, think between 1.50 – 5 per marker to buy good quality once. There are 3 brands that I like. I go from cheapest to most expensive. I will share the price for 1 marker, but it is cheaper to buy them in bulk or in sets. The price might be different in your currency.

• Spectrum Noir Illustrator Markers: 1,50 euro
• Pro marker: between 2-4 euro
• Copic markers : between 5-8 euro

My personal collection of markers grew over the years, once in awhile I have to replace a colour. Sometimes you can buy refills for colours that are used a lot. I have at the moment more than 100 different markers in my collection. The reason why I love them is that the colour is always even and can be build up a little. But they also blend easily with other colours.

Also markers are an amazing idea to give for a birthday for anyone that uses them. In the beginning you truly need only a couple of markers. I started out with 5 from Pro marker.

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I hope my recommendations can help you out when starting out. Or it can also be used for inspiration as a birthday gifts.

I love to know if there are any different supplies you use on your art. Let me know in the comments.

Till next time,

Rosa-Lynn