Hello, hello my creative friends!
This month I’d like to share with you some of my favorite art supplies.
To start with, I really love the Pentel mechanical clutch pencil 0.5mm. This pencil is perfect for sketching and you don’t have to worry about sharpening it every few minutes! Of course I also largely use the Staedtler Mars plastic eraser!
For sketching I really like the Moleskine Sketchbooks. The pages are not very thick, so these are not good for wet media, but for pencil sketches they are my absolute favorite! When I want to sketch in watercolor or other wet media I use the Stillman & Birn Zeta series, which are suitable for mixed media. They are made with acid-free, chloride free, lignin-free and archival paper so you can rest assured that your work will be preserved very well.
When it comes to watercolor paper there is only one for me: Arches Aquarelle hot pressed paper. I have tried other brands, and occasionally I use other types of paper, but if I’m serious about a particular painting, this is the only paper I will reach for. This paper is still made the traditional way, with a cylinder mold, which means that the fibers are evenly distributed, and the paper slackens uniformly when wet.
The paper is also gelatin sized, thus preserving the transparency of the colors and, at the same time, preventing paints from penetrating the paper. I can add or remove paint and the paper will take quite a lot of stress without starting to lift and deteriorate.
I have acquired quite a selection over the years, but you don’t need all of these!
My favorite watercolors are Winsor & Newton Professional Watercolour. You can buy these watercolors in tubes or pans of different size and, yes they are a little expensive, however if you want to spend time and effort creating a painting you definitely don’t want to use cheap materials that, first of all will never allow you to achieve the best results, and second, they will probably start to fade after a few years or even months!
I have also started to experiment recently with liquid watercolor. I bought some of the Ecoline Liquid Watercolor as these had good reviews and were not as expensive as other brands. I like using these watercolors as they are very vibrant and a little drop will go a long way :-)
Another favorite are the Tombow Dual Tip Blendable brush pens. These colours are water-based and can be used as watercolours and, as the name suggests, they can also be blended. I love to use them for those final fine details.
So these are some of my favorite art supplies. I hope you have found it useful! I’m sure you will have your own favorite products, but the best way to find your favorite is to try and experiment!
Let me know in the comments which are your favorite art supplies and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out to me :-)