7 Things To Consider BEFORE Buying Art Supplies (Beginner Advice)

Introduction

Are you interested in learning art but don't know where to start with art materials? Or perhaps you have been drawing for a while and would like to pick up a new medium such as oil painting or watercolour? Rather than offering you a list of supplies to start with, I would like to present you with seven tools of discernment instead. Seven things that may help ease the confusion and frustration many experience with all the information and inspiration out there when it comes to art supplies. Even if you have been on the art path for a while, some of these may be useful to you too. At any level, sometimes we all need a little reminder to help us along.

I was inspired to create this list after a conversation in Lana's art discord. Lana also blogs and posts youtube videos about watercolour and drawing, check out her blog and her watercolour database. The discussion was about a recent post and video Lana had published on what beginners need to start watercolour, and some of the frustrations people express when artists offer recommendations.

I myself remember some of that confusion and overwhelm when I was first starting out in watercolour and in my art self-studying. Part of my art journey involved figuring out how to navigate the temptations and confusions of art supplies, and why so many opinions differ in the first place. Not to mention the nearly unending goose chases you can lead yourself on trying to find "the pencil that will make me draw like X" instead of actually drawing! I offer some of the things I learnt along the way, in the hopes that it saves you time and energy in navigating art supplies for yourself. Before you go out to pick up new supplies, consider some of the following things to help you decide for yourself what you want and need. As always, take what resonates and leave what doesn't. With that, let's dive in!

What supplies do you actually need to start drawing and painting?

1. Location

I have started out with location, because although it is heavily related to budget (coming up next) it is perhaps a less obvious cause of confusion to beginners. Have you ever watched someone recommend a cheap art supply, only to go to your local art store or browse your available art supply websites and find that that brand is no where near as cheap as the artist suggested? The artist likely did not lie to you or intend to frustrate you, instead the issue will mainly be down to *a difference in location*.

Brands change price country to country, and even region to region within a country. In some cases, brands may be difficult to acquire or not be available at all in some countries. This may seem an obvious thing, but it is not obvious to everyone and can be a source of confusion to beginners seeking recommendations. Due to the nature of social media an artist cannot reasonably list what is available and cheap in every single country within a 10 minute video. The time investment required to research and create lists like that would also be immense. Some artists do try to remind people of this by saying something along the lines of "this is the price in my area, which may be different to yours", but it is not always mentioned.

Being aware of the influence location can have helps you to not be as surprised when differences in price or available occurs, but is there anything you can practically about it to help yourself? Yes! Two things you can do, either on their own or in conjunction with one another, are:

• write down the brands that are recommended within your needs and preferences, then check those brands in your local art stores/websites to see if they are available and within your budget

• browse your local art stores/websites, and write down the brands within your budget. Take that list and research reviews on each brand. This method has the added benefit of discovering things that may be unique to your area, and less talked about by the major youtubers because that supply is not available in their area. By searching for a specific art supply review yourself, you may come across posts from your area that were buried under a flood of other posts.

TLDR:- Brands range in price location to location. Learn about the brands available in your area within your budget, and research those brands.

The availability of art supplies differs location to location, just as wildflowers only grow in particular areas and conditions.

2. Budget

The most obvious and most discussed subject to consider when buying and recommending art supplies: budget. Everyone has a different budget, and I recommend you get to know yours realistically. Combine it with the other points in this post to produce a more comprehensive understanding of your individual circumstances, needs, and preferences.

One helpful thing that is becoming more common with art supply recommendations is categorisation by budget. Usually people offer two or three categories ranging from luxury items (think custom gilded fountain pens), to high-quality everyday items (e.g. professional quality), to cheaper budget everyday items (e.g. student quality). By necessity these categories are simplified, and influenced by things such as the artist's location and preferences. Once again, a ten minute video cannot cater to the individual circumstances of each member of humanity. I suggest combining the information provided online with self awareness of your own circumstances, in order to find what will likely work for you. That's the point of me sharing these seven things to consider!

TLDR:- Develop a comprehensive understanding of your needs and circumstances by combining a knowledge of your budget with other points discussed in this post. Use that self awareness to translate price-based recommendations online into what may actually work for you.

Some of my favourite sketching tools are mechanical pencils and sketchbooks that are cheap in my area.

3. Frustration Level You Can Deal With

In general, the cheaper you go with art supplies the more frustration you are going to experience. There are exceptions to this (I love sketching with ballpoint pens!), but some mediums are particularly prone to this increase in frustration. I will use watercolour as an example, since it is an area I have experience in. In watercolour art supply recommendations, you will often hear the phrase "buy the best you can afford". This is mainly due to the frustration level with watercolour supplies increasing considerably as the quality and qualities of the supply changes as the price decreases.

The composition of watercolour supplies (the materials an art supply is made out of) often changes as the supply becomes cheaper. An example of this is the cotton content of watercolour paper decreasing as the price of the paper decreases. The problem with this is that as a paper contains less and less cotton, the paper has less and less of the properties of cotton. If you are trying to following along with a tutorial or course and the tutor is using 100% cotton paper but you are using 25% cotton paper, you will have a harder time producing the same effects and with the same ease as the tutor.

This can also be the case with watercolour paint, when you compare professional grade to student grade. To make the paint cheaper, student grade usually cuts corners in composition of the paint. The pigment load (how much pigment there is in the paint) can decrease, and the amount of fillers can increase. Let's use the previous example of you trying to follow a tutorial or course, but this time the tutor is using professional grade paints and you are using student grade paints. Lower pigment load makes it harder to reach the same saturation as the tutor using professional paints. The presence of fillers can produce a cloudy or chalky look to the paint which makes it harder to achieve the same transparency and luminosity as the tutor.

You will come across a cacophony of opinions regarding what compromises beginners should make when it comes to selecting supplies on a budget. This range of opinion forms from the diverse range of circumstances each artist is in (what supplies are available in their location, what subjects they paint, etc.), but it also gives you some insight into what each artist finds frustrating themselves.

One artist will say to only use 100% cotton and to compromise by buying student colours, because to them that is less frustrating. Then a second artist will say that actually student grade paints are more frustrating than paper, and beginners only need 50% cotton paper but professional paints because that compromise is less frustrating to them. Then a third artist will say that no you need to use cotton paper and professional paints, and they may suggest cutting your budget down by choose a small range of 3 to 6 professional paints. Then a fourth artist will say that a small range of paints is frustrating because... you get the idea. Rather than becoming swamped by contradictory opinions, be aware of why this happens and use it to your advantage. You can take all the opposing information to figure out the most common frustrations and compromises artists make with their supplies, and use that information to decide which option may fit you. What are you willing to cope with? What compromises are you willing to make?

But how do you know what to pick when you're a fresh beginner with no experience at all? That's a difficult one to give a one-size fits all list of supplies to. Instead, consider how as you make more art you will discover for yourself what you like or dislike, what frustrates you and what is a breeze to use. Use the early moments to not only learn art, but learn about yourself too (you can even keep a journal or write notes in your sketchbook to help record this). Learning your preferences and frustration limits will pay you back tenfold as you continue drawing and painting, and allow you to save time and energy as you pick up more mediums and tools. For now though: no matter what supplies you choose, you will still be able to paint or draw.

TLDR:- Some supplies will increase in frustration the cheaper you go. Learn about common frustrations and compromises artists make, and use that to figure out what may fit your own preferences. If you don't know what may frustrate you yet, use your beginner time to learn about yourself as well as learning art.

Some mediums such as watercolour can become more frustrating the cheaper you go.

4. Your Interests

By knowing your interests you can more easily narrow down the art supplies you need, especially on a tight budget. The most simple form of this is knowing which medium you are interested in, but subject matter can actually help you narrow down supplies too. Even if you don't know what subjects you want to draw or paint, that can help as well!

Say for example you are interested in oil painting, and you know you want to get into portraiture. You could look into limited palettes designed for portraits such as the Zorn palette. A small yet versatile palette of colours designed for the subject you are interested in can be a great way to help budget in higher-quality materials.

If you don't know what subject you want to paint, then choosing a small but versatile selection of supplies can be a helpful compromise. When I first got into using alcohol markers (which can be expensive) I decided that my priorities were choosing a good quality brand and having a selection that could be used to illustrate any subject. The compromise I reached for myself within my budget was buying a selection of grey markers. A benefit of this was building my skills in the art fundamental of values, but a downside was the inevitable lack of colour. Other artists may reach a different conclusion, because to them colour may be more important and they would rather have more colours but compromise with a cheaper brand.

When I first started watercolour I used student grade paints. Once I branched into professional paints I decided that my priorities were versatility in subject. Thus my budgeting compromise was choosing a small yet versatile palette, and after researching I chose the split primary palette. The benefit of this was I increased my colour mixing and colour theory skills, but the disadvantage of this was that you do a lot of colour mixing. See how this ties into the frustrations you are willing to deal with? A lot of these concepts are interwoven with each other.

TLDR:- Knowing what mediums and subjects you are interested in can help you narrow down the supplies you need. Limited palettes designed for a specific subject can be a great budget option, if you don't mind all the colour mixing. If you don't know what subjects you want to paint or draw, then perhaps a small but versatile selection is a better fit for your needs.

Being interested in a particular medium or subject can help to narrow down the materials you need.

5. Limitation Births Creativity

It can be very tempting to amass a giant amount of art supplies. In some cases it may seem like you have to acquire a huge collection before you can even start. This is a very deceptive concept, and can both delay you starting and make it overwhelming to continue.

The delays typically arise out of excuses we tell ourselves. "If I only had their pencil, I would draw like them!" can turn into "I can't draw with my pencils until I have their pencil." "If I only had that one particular purple X artist uses, then I will paint like them!" can turn into "but until then why bother using the paints I have?" Perhaps these are extreme examples, but threads of them weave through many an artist's journey at any skill level.

Similarly, having too many options can actually turn into a source of overwhelm that makes it hard to draw or paint. I came across this first hand when I started plein air drawing. I would take along with me my pencil case, and suddenly in a new environment my usual tools felt overwhelming to choose from. The choice overwhelm exacerbated the fear I felt from learning a new skill. Once I started taking only one tool out with me it eased the path between me picking it up and starting to draw.

Having just enough for your needs, based upon all the factors discussed so far, allows you to:

• do the art

• learn the tool(s) inside out

• see your skills progress

• increase your creativity in how much you can do with what you have

• start figuring out what you like and dislike

• have a foundation for building a collection (which brings us to the next section!)

TLDR:- Gathering art supplies can be a source of excuses that prevent you from making art. Having a lot of art supplies can be a source of choice overwhelm, which can make it harder to make art. Using a limited toolkit can have advantages in making art, building skills, and expressing your creativity.

When I started learning plein air sketching I only brought one pen or pencil with me to prevent overwhelm.

6. Building a Collection

Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was my art collection. Or most art supply collections for that matter! We didn't pick them up in one giant art haul (that would be both amazing and terrifying) but by adding to what we have over time.

Just because you start out with a small selection doesn't mean that is all you will ever use in a decade, a year, or even a month. Building a collection is a very adaptable process that evolves with each artist based on their individual budget, location, interests, frustrations, etc. So much variety exists in the art community because we are all different people, but this is also where so much confusion can occur for beginners when they try to take in all the varied opinions online or try to copy-paste another person's life over their own.

The foundations you build are yours. They will grow, they will change, they will morph and mould into something unique to you.

To use watercolour as an example once more, no matter what you start with you can use those supplies to figure out where you want to go next. Do you love the granulation of ultramarine blue? Maybe you want to explore more granulating pigments and occasionally pick one up as your budget allows. Or do you find yourself constantly mixing the same hue repeatedly for your paintings. Perhaps you want to buy that hue to save you time. These are just two examples in a near endless branching of possibilities.

TLDR:- you can build a collection over time by building upon the starting foundations.

Some of the polychromos pencils I added to my collection after starting with the basic 12 colour set.

7. Is It Inspiration or Shiny Object Syndrome?

I encourage you to start learning about yourself when it comes to art by considering the factors discussed here, and keep checking in with them as you and your life changes. By knowing yourself, your preferences, and what is available to you it gives you the tools to start recognising if something inspires you or if you are experiencing "shiny object syndrome" (a distraction).

When you watch your favourite artist gush over their new favourite supply, and you are overcome by an excitement and urge to throw your wallet at the nearest art store consider whether you *actually* want it in your practice. Go through all the factors mentioned, and see what comes up for yourself.

Sometimes we can mistake what we are feeling as inspiration, when it is actually something else. In a darker aspect, perhaps you are excited because you feel like buying that tool will be a faster route to increasing your skills rather than the effort of actually increasing your skills. In a lighter aspect, perhaps you are just feeling excited because the artist you are what is excited. Joy can be contagious! Once you're aware of that being the source, talking other artists about each of your interests and favourites can even be a source of energy that refuels you. I have had lovely discussions with people online comparing our different preferences for art supplies!

TLDR:- learn to notice when the art supplies of another artist inspires you, or if you are being distracted by something that doesn't fit you.

May I tempt you?

Conclusion

There are so many voices and opinions out there in the art community. This can be very confusing, overwhelming, or frustrating to beginners. By learning to discern why differences in opinion occur, and by learning to understand your own needs and preferences, you can start to clear away some of that confusion. I have presented seven things for you to consider before buying art supplies, based upon things I have come across when I was a beginner and as I have progressed in art. Take what resonates with you, and leave what doesn't. Happy drawing!