Drawing & Painting Essentials: Little Things That Help Create Big Impressions

When it comes to artistic projects, having the right tools is pivotal, especially in regard to drawing and painting. So whether you are a student, a casual sketchbook creator, an aspiring artist or an established master, the following items are essential for your art projects.

Graphite Pencils

Graphite pencils are the most common type of drawing tools as their composition allows for the smoothest strokes. Therefore, a quality pencil set that includes a full spectrum of graphite grades can help you explore lighter and darker marks, and it can also be used for achieving contrast.

These sets can give you the ability to work with many different values and varieties of the mark. Graffiti pencils and can be used to draw everything, from the simplest of sketches to highly detailed drawings. You can also find them individually in case you don’t need the whole set.

Pencil Sharpener

In order to keep all of your pencils sharp and ready for your next drawing you’ll need a good pencil sharpener. Pencil sharpeners are available in different shapes and sizes, usually made from plastic or metal. Metal hand-held sharpeners are the best choice since they’re easy to use and allow you to see the pencil tip while it’s being sharpened. By seeing the pencil tip, you can prevent over-sharpening and broken pencil tips.

Another option is an electric sharpener. A quality electric pencil sharpener can sharpen your pencil without eating it all up. However, you should avoid using it with coloured pencils. The waxy binder found in coloured pencils can build up within the blades of the sharpener and ruin the device.

Eraser

To remove pencil marks, you need an eraser. The eraser is the second most used tool in drawing, after the pencil. Options vary here too, from rubber and gum to kneaded, vinyl or plastic eraser. Rubber erasers are most commonly used to erase graphite. Kneaded erasers are also a good choice because they don’t leave traces behind.

You can also shape them differently when you need to erase a small area or create a light shading. To remove media from surfaces that are sensitive to tearing, you can use a gum eraser. The vinyl or plastic eraser can erase almost anything, but you need to be extra careful not to tear up the paper.

Ink

Ink drawing is another popular medium loved by artists. The ink may be applied with a pen or a brush to achieve either linear or tonal effects. It can also be diluted to produce lighter washes. You can achieve lighter areas and highlights by scraping ink from the paper.

When checking out this type of drawing and painting equipment, it’s important to know that water-based inks are far superior to traditional dye-based ones since the latter are usually prone to fading.

What’s more, water-based ones are very versatile – suitable for use on paper, primed canvas, colourfix paper and art boards. Simply put, they can be used on all non-greasy surfaces. The intense and quite pigmented colours they provide can be diluted with water for when you want to achieve more nuanced tonal ranges.

Alcohol inks are an exciting new medium in the art world that allows for a free flow of expression with a variety of techniques. These inks allow you to choose from powerful punches of colour and use them on non-absorbent surfaces. For instance, you can paint glass vases, jewellery and metals, as well as functional wooden pieces.

Coloured Pencils

Every artist needs a lot of colours, so a set of quality coloured pencils is a must-have piece of drawing equipment. Whether you opt for soft and buttery, oily based, dry or wet pencils, just make the set provides plenty of colours.

Art Markers

Art markers are easy to use and dry quickly, so they’re a great choice for on-location use as well as for travelling. The effortless application of colour makes these drawing supplies well-suited for doodling, sketching and gesture-drawing.

Sketchbook

A sketchbook is one of the most important things an artist can have. It allows you to practise your ideas which is one of the driving factors for successful artworks. Make sure to select a durable, hardcover sketchbook that has plenty of pages where you can practise your ideas before realisation. The hardcover will keep the corners of the pages inside nice and clean and will help keep the pages flat if you use mixed media applications.

Painting Surface

After sketching your ideas on a drawing paper, the next step is to draw your final piece of art on your painting surface. Depending on your selected medium, you can choose from various options of this drawing and painting equipment. Pre-stretched pads are ideal if you’re using watercolours for your paintings. These sheets of paper have been already stretched so you can paint right away. If you prefer painting using acrylic, you can choose from acrylic paper or canvas. The acrylic paper is a good choice because it doesn’t require too much pressure and gives you more room to make mistakes.

You can opt for medium suited paper for your drawing projects. This paper is suitable for use with a variety of drawing media, including graphite, charcoal, and coloured pencils.

Watercolour or Acrylic Set

Although watercolours are usually natural, some watercolour paints have a synthetic binder. Acrylics, on the other hand, are human-made combo that includes acrylic resin, binder, and pigment. Both acrylic and watercolour paints are water-soluble. Whether you should select a watercolour or acrylic set mainly depend on the technique you want to use.

Brushes

You can use the following three types of brushes with your acrylic paintings:

• Liner brush that you can use to paint fine details.
• Filbert brush for smoothing out and general painting.
• Flat wash for painting backgrounds.

If you chose watercolour painting, make sure to include the following three types:

• Size 6 liner brush for small detail painting.
• Size 8 or 10 round brush for general purpose painting.
• Medium-sized flat brush for washes.