My Top Favorite Art Supplies
Hello! Welcome or Welcome back to another blog post here at Kiridoko! In today’s post, I’ll be discussing my favourite art supplies that I use often. Honestly, I don’t have a lot of art supplies in general, so this post will be straightforward and to the point. If you’re a beginner artist, the following are pretty much all that you need to create art.
First up are sketchbooks! I’ve used different (and cheap) sketchbooks over the years on and off, but the best ones I’ve found so far that I am also currently using, are the Royal Talens Art Creation Hardback Sketch Books. They come in various sizes, which makes them super handy to have lying around or to carry when you’re out and about. One thing you’ll learn about me right now is that I LOVE hardback covers. Not just sketchbooks but books in general! They look very classic to me and just feel special. The ones I have shown in the picture above are 21 x 30cm (140 g/m², 90 lbs smooth paper) and 13 x 21cm (140 g/m², 94 lbs smooth paper).
These sketchbooks are both:
acid-free
suitable for pencil, charcoal, chalk, crayon and more
contain 80 sheets with a natural white surface
I love doing pencil sketches with both traditional and mechanical pencils. There’s a slight texture/grain to the paper and using an eraser doesn’t damage the paper either or create loose paper fibres.
Other than pencils I also use markers to sketch or plan out thumbnails. The paper is thick enough so there’s no bleed-through at all. I haven’t tried other brands of markers so I can’t say for sure there won’t be any bleed-through with other markers.
Now that I’ve mentioned markers, the ones I’ve become obsessed with are the Daler Rowney Double Tip Markers that come with a set of 12 colours. On one end there’s a 1mm round tip and the other is a brush tip, which I rarely use. I got them at a reduced price and thought I should give them a try, and I’m so glad I did.
I’ve had these mechanical pencils from a long, long time ago… back into my secondary school days. My Mom got them for me from Malaysia while she was visiting and no hate and all, but Asia has the best stationery (in my humble opinion) compared to the Emerald Isle, Ireland.
My go-to when starting a sketch is to draw the basic outlines first using a normal HB pencil . The mechanical pencil is then used to add in detail, shading and depth. It gives me a lot of control in doing line work which I enjoy. I’ve realized that I like line art more than colouring, probably because in school, that’s all that we did really; a lot of observational drawings using graphite most of the time.
The eraser that I use by the brand Seed, is the ForCOLOR Neon Yellow eraser. It also erases colour pencils too!
Holbein Acrylic Gouache is a brand which most of you are probably familiar with. Before Holbein, I used HIMI gouache, but I didn’t like the chalky matte finish and the colours were a bit dull when dry. Holbein acrylic gouache is expensive but I remember really wanting to try out acrylic gouache since a lot of artists I saw on Instagram and YouTube were using this brand.
Watercolours were my usual go-to so naturally with gouache, I like to water it down a lot until it’s a bit translucent at times and then I would build the layers bit by bit. Rarely do I use gouache as is straight from the tube. I guess this helps me scrimp on the paint too hahaha.
We have now arrived at paper for paint. Boy oh boy am I picky. I have to say that Hahnemühle Agave Watercolour Pad is by far the best watercolour paper I’ve used to date. I used to really love the Canson XL Multi-Media paper for watercolour. That’s not the case anymore as I have found with many other watercolour papers I’ve tried. When using gouache, I really disliked that the paint was just “sitting” on top of the paper, almost as if there was a layer of plastic on the paper. The paint just doesn’t “sink” in. (I did a lil’ research and turns out they do make some watercolour papers with a layer of plastic on top to accommodate the removal of excess water if needed.)
With Hahnemühle’s paper, I found that not only did the paint sink in fast, but I was able to blend paints pretty nicely and easily. The only thing I have to say that is a bit undesirable is that the paper is quite textured and will show as so when scanned. But nothing a few settings on the scanner can’t fix alongside the trusty Procreate on my lil’ ol’ iPad. At my local art store, a pad costs about 13 euro.
290 gsm natural white watercolour paper
70% Agave fibre
30% Cotton rag
Cold pressed
I’ll put a disclaimer here that I’m no paper expert and of course, there’s so much still I have to learn. If you have any recommendations for your favourite papers, let me know in the comments!
I don’t have much to say about paintbrushes. Most of them are small brushes since I like to add detail and work on smaller pieces of paper.
The translucent handle paintbrush is from Holbein
The middle paintbrush in the picture below is from Royal and Langnickel
The last brush at the bottom is from Da Vinci which I purchased in Copenhagen. The brush head is rectangular which I love when painting larger surface areas or adding texture
Lastly, I would like to introduce my buddy here, the Crelando LED Light Pad. It’s quite thin and is very easy to set up. Having the fear of messing up a painting, naturally, I wouldn’t want to sketch out a new slightly altered version of a line drawing on new paper, so I decided that tracing was the best way to go. If you’ve read my previous posts, I am someone who recreates a painting a few times until I’m somewhat happy with the final, so the light pad has been really helpful in that I still have the original sketch or drawing.
And that’s all for now on my favorite art supplies! I hope you found this post helpful in some way and Thank You for reading this far :)
Finally, I’m super excited that I will be going to Japan in October! So stay tuned for a Japanese art supply/ stationery haul!
