Do you sometimes marvel what fine art tools you really need to draw and paint in your prowess journal?

I'm going to portion out 11 top art tools to use, merely get into't rush and think you moldiness get all of these. Check each one out and choose the ones you need for your unique nontextual matter.

Art tools and materials for drawing and painting

Here are the best art tools and materials for draught and house painting.

1. Graphite pencils

2. Brushes

3. Paint

4. Kneaded eraser

5. Painting operating theater drawing paper pads

6. House painting knife or a palette tongue

7. Painting palette

8. Masking tape

9. Sponges

10. Stencils

11. Brayer

Disavowal: Some links in that berth May represent affiliate links. This means that if you purchase something finished that connexion, I get a small commission, at no extra monetary value to you.

1. Graphite pencils

A pencil is inevitable if you want to pass anything, right? I bed, there are so some.

If you need detailed information about pencils, here's a great article about pencils with fun historical facts also.

Here's a graphical record of pencil marks considering their hardness/softness and lightness/wickedness.

a graph with different pencil pressures
Original source: Untitledmind72 at English Wikipedia / Public world

When I draw faces OR sketch something else, I just use a Hb pencil or a mechanical pencil in my stash.

You don't need to overthink this. If you want more info and different kinds of pencils, you come your research and experiment.

However, if you don't handle about the nitty gritty details (equal me), just draw with the one that feels good in your hand and is easy to erase (if that's important to you).

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2. Brushes

If you want to paint, brushes are fatal artistic creation tools as well.

Let ME introduce you to a few basic brushes you might need for your art journal paintings.

For painting with acrylic paint, I usually utilisation flat tire brushes in varied sizes.

However, with watercolor, I more often than not habit disclike brushes in different sizes also.

You canful consumption thin brushes with watercolor, too. Especially if you want to top bigger areas connected your Sri Frederick Handley Page. But I conscionable love oversized round brushes for water-colou. They hold enough piddle and blusher for numerous strokes.

Contain the image below for easier reference when it comes to watercolor brushes.

art tools infographic for watercolor brushes

One brush that I find extremely useful and practical is the water brush. It's an impressive art tool because information technology has its ain water container. So, whenever you need more water, just squeeze the brush and that's it. They come in different sizes, mostly in sets with S, M, and L sizes.

3. Paint

This one goes without saying, right?

You can paint with acrylic, watercolors, oil paints, gouache, etc.

I mostly use acrylic paint and watercolors. They are completely different only some have positive sides to them that pee you use them finished and over over again.

acrylic paint and a brush

If you're just starting out, you don't need to spend a lot of money on professional paints. Buy scholar tier paints now, recitation and develop your skills, and past invest in something more expensive and of greater quality. This way, you'll feel more reassured when you start using more creative person grade paints.

And even more, when start with cheaper art tools and materials, you don't feel the pressure of fashioning everything perfect and lose the fear of ruining high-ticket supplies.

4. Kneaded eraser

This eraser is a great fine art joyride for anyone deficient to arrive into drawing.

pencil and kneaded eraser on the table

A kneaded eraser is something like a rattling sturdy gum tree that you can form anyway you like-minded to erase regular the smallest of details.

One of the best advantages of this eraser is that information technology leaves no erasing crumbs. How amazing is that?

When I sketch a look, for case, and don't want the pencil to be visible under watercolour, I just use this eraser, pattern it into a roll and roll it all terminated my drawing to relieve the pencil marks.

5. Painting/drawing paper pads (Beaver State an fine art journal)

I usage both. I buy paper pads or big sheets of watercolor paper and I cut it in sizes I want. Making an art journal with these paper pads is another idea, to have them at one place.

Besides, if you want to draw and paint separately, for frame or scanning, you can use paper pads.

In that location are incompatible kinds of paper you can use up, depending happening what you privation to do happening it.

The more wet media you want to use, the thicker paper you motivation. You terminate opt from assorted media report, watercolor paper, sketching paper, craft theme, and indeed galore others.

As I said, I mostly use watercolor or mixed media theme because I use a lot of blusher and unusual nontextual matter supplies that simply don't belong advantageously on thin, unornamented newspaper.

6. Painting knife surgery a pallet knife

These cardinal are unlike just can besides be used for same purposes.

painting knives as art tools
Painting knives I use up

A palette tongue is used to intermixture paint on the palette, whereas a painting knife is utilised for applying acrylic on paper or analyze. This way, you make up texture and keister add interesting details like lines, or littler chunks of color.

I stimulate a set of painting knives that I mostly role for applying acrylic, texture glue or using them arsenic art tools for intermixture my rouge as well.

If you don't have these simply want correspondent results, you can use a lowercase put together of thick cardboard, an old credit operating room library card.

7. Painting palette

Before you run off and bargain a specific picture palette, let me say that you can use anything to serve as your palette. I've been using instrumentation plates, jar caps, plastic palettes (same we did in school day), unreal pieces, pieces of glass or even tiles.

Role anything that has enough distance for you to put all the colors you'll use in one project. Also, count in the space for admixture colors.

Sometimes I rede cleaning your palettes, but ultimately, information technology's much many work in IT than when you just leave the paint to dry. At least for me, because acrylic paint key dries quickly and information technology's hard to clean easily. And moreover, when IT gets nonsweet, you give the axe put more rouge on top off without fearing that you'll pick up the blusher underneath.

So, my palettes are now very messy, colorful and I rarely clean them.

ceramic palette for acrylic paint
My wonderfully messy instrumentation paint pallet

8. Masking paper

This tape measure is not meant to hold fast forever when you glue it Down. And that's wherefore it's perfect.

You can use information technology to protect (isolate) a certain area on your painting paper. This style, produce frames around your house painting which look after amazing, especially in art journals.

Masking paper works great with watercolor when you frame your painting with it. This just looks stunning.

Also, you can use masking paper as a avid fine art tool to isolate some areas, for example, for journaling. First, put some masking tape along the paper, blusher round it, and when the paint is unexciting, take it off. You'll conclusion up with untouched Caucasian space to journal along.

9. Sponges

You can buy painting sponges already fixed along some variety of a palm for easier economic consumption. But I love using kitchen sponges for applying acrylic paint.

They are cheap and all of us have them in our homes.

I mostly utilize it for dabbing acrylic resin paint onto the paper, merely a neat thought is to cut the sponge in certain shapes and use them as stamps. Therein display case, don't press the parazoan too hard, you'll just get a big blob of paint without any shape at all.

dabbing acrylic paint with a sponge art tool

10. Stencils

We all love stencils. They are versatile, come out a gazillion designs and help United States tot up something special to our art.

When you don't bon what to do, turn to your stencils. You can use them with acrylic paint, watercolor, inks, texture paste, pens, embossing ink, and so on.

I mostly use them for making backgrounds together with texture library paste and/or acrylic resin key.

using stencil and a painting knife as art tools

If you wish to buy a few stencils, maybe think around getting more generic ones like abstract shapes, letters, or flowers. So you'll have a stencil you can reuse time and again, all time with a different and unequalled approach.

Why non have even more amusing and reach your own stencils? Throw your own art tools you can reuse as more times as you want.

How to brawl this?

First, you can download my free stencil templates you see in the pic below. Print them on a transparency, cut the shapes out, and in that respect you go. A brand late stencil for you to use.

11. Brayer

And the last, but not the to the lowest degree, the splendid brayer. Ohio, how I love this artistic production tool.

First of all, information technology's an astonishing tool to work with. If you love seeing how brushes leave marks and how the paint flows on the paper, you'll enjoy seeing the brayer in action.

IT's au fon a roller for painting and information technology comes in various sizes.

painting art journal page with a brayer

What I love the most about IT is the texture it creates with paint. The brayer leaves grungy marks and strokes which I really, really sleep with. But it doesn't give to Be that path. You bottom habituate it to cover the unhurt page or a paper with symmetric strokes.

At that place's entirely unmatched matter that bugs ME with a brayer, and that's the cleaning part. If you've ever talked to me, you'd hear me say that I'm lazy when it comes to cleaning my art tools. And the brayer is non helping in the least.

IT's sometimes hard to clean if you don't do it ethical gone. I mean, right away. I often forget that and destruction up with desiccated key thereon. But still, that's non that big of a deal. The more mess, the to a greater extent fun.

Unalterable tips about art tools and materials

What I want you to remember from this article is that you don't have to have all the art tools out there to make amazing art.

Adjudicate the ones you already have, flummox one or two new ones to sample and see what feels right in your hand.

If you have no of these tools, than I'd suggest getting several key, paper and brushes (I'm sure you have a pencil). You'll use these three the most if you'Re into art journaling.

You can e'er upgrade, but take it slow at the beginning and don't overwhelm yourself with a bunch of supplies that'll just collect dust.

Finally, choose the ones that really work for you, that you feel comfortable using now, or the ones that you're the most curious close to.

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