February 2025: For the love of art supplies (Part 1)

Britchida -

I really have two hobbies: making art and art supplies themselves. I love to actually express myself through art AND there's nothing like a new box of crayons, every color with their crisp tips all in a row.

I've come across artists who have realized that they like collecting, trying out and reviewing art supplies more than they like keeping a sketchbook or working on finished artworks. They'd rather nerd out about their materials' technical specs and subtle qualities. And I totally get it: swatching out new paints is a supreme tactile experience, valuable in its own right. Noticing the interplay of water and pigment, looking for how this new red is not quite the same as that familiar red are total joys in and of themselves.

Even with "art" evades me, art supplies are there. Perhaps I'm not feeling connected to my ideas, or feeling like I don't have anything to say, or am tired – in these cases, I turn to my materials, swatching them out, trying new combinations of mixed media, playing around. This exploration is important and a meaningful use for supplies, even the "good" (expensive) ones. It's part of how we find our fluency as mark makers, and even more importantly, it's fun. It's a good way to spend a life, moving color around.

I've written quite a few in depth guides to different kinds of art supplies, but I realized I haven't done a zoomed out perspective on ways to approach them, both logistically (studio organization and care) and personally (how to use your supplies when they so easily feel too precious).

I've been working on outlining my approach to both, and it ended up so long that I'm splitting it up into two parts.

Part 1: Studio organization

I've been making art regularly now for about 9 years, and I only just set up a dedicated studio over the last few weeks. It's a bedroom that we finally got cleaned out and fixed up. My collection of materials has grown as well. I started with one small purchase of a sketchbook and watercolor kit back in 2016 and now... well, you'll see!

It seems important to note that you truly don't need almost any of the materials I've accumulated for a thriving creative practice. If I were starting over today, I'd buy a fraction of what I have collected. But, I'd know which fraction to buy only because I've tried so much! Here are a few things to keep in mind:

  • Good quality art supplies are way easier to work with than cheap ones. Ironically, it takes a lot of skill to work with student-grade materials which tend to be finicky and more difficult to control.
  • If you have a set budget, I'd always recommend spending it on a basic mixing set of high quality paint (red, blue, yellow and white) and high quality paper/sketchbooks. You can get away with using low quality brushes (as long as the bristles aren't falling out) and you don't need all the colors. Though, it's very fun to have all the colors!
  • I had a very small collection for the first several years. I started buying more once I was doing art full time and chose to put time and energy into exploring different mediums to find what would really work best for me. By that point, this stuff was also a write off :)
  • I don't have kids or travel or go out much or have any other hobbies. All my tokens for almost a decade now have gone here!
  • As you'll see, I only use a small set of things on a daily basis. It's actually fairly affordable to built a small, flexible, high quality art kit.