All about art supplies

If there is one thing artists love—regardless of preferred medium or skill level—it’s talking about art supplies. If you’re ever hanging out with an artist and need to fill an awkward silence, just ask what kind of pencil they use, or if they have any paper recommendations. You are guaranteed to encounter some disproportionately strong opinions.

I am no different, of course, so I thought I’d share some of my favorites.

Illustration from my book Skip to the Fun Parts

Pens

Most of my finished work is done with a Speedball pen, the kind with the cheap plastic holder and separate nib, but I always carry a variety of brush pens and pencils in my purse, for out-of-the-house drawing. Overall these are my go-tos:

Watercolors

For my color work, I use tubes of watercolors, along with an excellent set that a watercolorist friend gave me.

Thanks, Sarah!

The brilliant cartoonist Richard Thompson was the ultimate authority on watercolors as far as I’m concerned. A lot of my palette recommendations I take from this thirteen year old post he wrote on his blog.

I also love this Daniel Smith watercolor sample sheet, which is a fun cheap way to try new colors:

I use old Clinique Moisture Surge jars (and the odd Darphin) as water containers, which are the perfect size. It’s also a really good moisturizer.

Paper

My cheap paper go-tos are: tracing paper, slightly-nicer tracing paper, and graph paper. When find yourself drawing something you like by accident (which is like 70% of the time) it’s convenient to trace what you did, or perfect it a bit before committing to your fancy paper. I use a rechargeable lightbox for the same reason.

Example of regular tracing paper.

My nicer paper is Arches, Bristol Board, and Stonehenge. Pre-cut paper is also something I’ve always found very soothing:

Warm-up drawings on 2x3’’ Strathmore Artist Trading cards. Seriously, am I the only one who uses these?!

Sketchbooks

My unpopular opinion is that Moleskines…aren’t that great. I mean, they’re fine. I like that they have a pocket in the back, which I think should come standard issue with all sketchbooks. But I think the Blackwing Slate Notebook, which has all of the frills of a Moleskine and comes with an elastic loop on the side for holding your pencil is a far superior sketchbook.

It’s important to decorate your sketchbook with stickers. I recommend these by Andrew Kozlowski.

If you have your own strong opinions about art supplies—or pen recommendations!—I welcome hearing from you in the comments.