If you’re like me, you love knowing what supplies other artists use. Here’s my top 5 must-haves + a bonus one at the end! I’ve linked all supplies where possible. I’d love to hear what yours are in the comments! **Also I need your help on my brush babies so please read on!!
Derwent Inktense Paint Palette - Hands down this is my number 1 absolute favorite set of paints to use in all of my artwork! These paints are technically watercolor, but they have this incredible vibrance of color that you don’t normally find in a watercolor pan palette. The colors offered in the set of 24 span everything you could want or need. You have all your standard primarys but then you also get this LOVELY shade of teal green, a gorgeous turquoise, both of which are super vibrant and clear. But then on the flip side you have this deep, rich dark plum that is one of my favorites to counterbalance all of the bright bright colors, along with a beautiful navy blue that has the same effect. These are amazing to work with, and I highly recommend them if you’re wanting to paint with watercolor but still achieve bright vibrant colors effortlessly!
Micron Pens - If you like to combine ink linework with your watercolor painting, look no further than these. They are waterproof and archival and come in a variety of colors and tip sizes and shapes. Perfect for adding fine line details to your paintings before or after you paint.
Sakura White Gelly Roll Pens - In addition to the fine linework I mentioned above, I love adding white linework to my paintings once they are dry. It adds such a fun element to the patterns I love to add in. For years I struggled to find a white pen that I really liked, but these have become my fan favorite. I always have several on hand at any given time. They can be a little finicky in how smoothly the ink comes out at first, but once you get it going, they are pretty solid!
Loew-Cornell 7020 Ultra Rd Brushes - These exact 2 pictured here to be precise. As you can see, these brushes have been very well loved! I have had them for ohhhh about 100 years now. AND in typing this post up, I searched these to see if I could add a link for you, and I am now devastated to learn that these have been discontinued!! If you are reading this and have a suggestion for the closest replacement to these, I’m all ears! I came across a blog with other artists that also share my love for these trying to find the closest option as a replacement but having no luck! Over the years, I have bought many new brushes since the handles on these are falling apart, but I always end up coming back to just these 2 little guys right here. The big one is a size 12, and I have no idea what size the small one is since that piece of info fell off years ago lol. But if you are looking for a brush that has the perfect tip for super fine details…along with the ability to cover larger areas as well, I would suggest these right here buuuut I guess you can’t find them anywhere now! It’s amazing how many different sized paintings I have made using just these. From small greeting card sized art up to 24x36” watercolor paintings. They are super versatile!
Koh-I-Noor Polycolor 72 Artists’ Colored Pencils - I love this set of colored pencils! I like to use these for shading on my final paintings sometimes. The texture of these is lovely… not too waxy like some colored pencils I’ve used. I find you can blend the colors fairly well with these if you use the right pressure of your hand when coloring. And the set of 72 gives every shade you could possibly want!
Here’s a piece of art that I had painted for a greeting card a while back using all of the supplies I’ve shown you here. You can see how well they all work together to get the vibrance and detailed pattern work I love to create!
BONUS supply! Not sure this one actually qualifies as a “supply” per se, but if you’re like me and you are pumping out lots of art, but are getting overwhelmed with how to organize it and store it, I can’t suggest these Ikea Alex rolling drawer units enough!!! I have my art organized into different groupings and stacked in these babies, and it has made life so much easier, so I wanted to mention them here! Looks like they no longer offer this dark teal color I have, but they do have white, gray and black:
Let me know what supplies are YOUR faves! AND if you have a replacement suggestion for my brush babies I’d love to hear it! Thanks for reading :)