Essential Art Supplies: How to Choose the Right Tools and Materials Every Artist Needs

Favorite Art Supplies: Art Tip 3:22

The essential art supplies are simpler than the store aisle makes them look: brushes, paint, something to paint on, a palette, a few drawing and mixing tools, and good light. Choosing the right ones comes down to one rule. Spend on the things that touch the color (paint and brushes), and save on the things you’re only practicing on.

You don’t need all of this on day one. Buy for the medium you’re working in now, learn it, and add the next thing when a painting asks for it.

How do you choose the right art supplies?

Choose by medium first, then by quality where quality changes the result. Here’s the order we teach students to shop in.

1. Pick one medium. Acrylic, oil, watercolor or drawing. Each one needs its own paint, surface and brushes, so buying for all of them at once spreads your budget thin.
2. Buy professional grade paint. This is the one place not to save. Poor paint gives you a false read of every color you mix.
3. Buy a few good brushes, not a big cheap set. Five good brushes beat fifteen weak ones.
4. Save on practice surfaces. Economy canvases, newsprint pads and warm-up boards are fine while you learn.
5. Match the surface to the paint. Oil needs a primed surface, watercolor needs heavy paper, and acrylic needs primed canvas or acrylic paper.
6. Buy the rest as you go. The right next purchase becomes obvious once a painting needs it.

Most of what you buy now will last a long time. Elli meets graduates who still paint from oil tubes they bought five years earlier, so a careful first purchase isn’t money spent on one course. It’s the start of a studio.

Should beginners buy student grade or professional grade paint?

Buy professional grade paint, even as a beginner. It sounds backwards, since the student label seems made for students, but cheap paint is the hardest paint to learn on.

Elli’s reasoning, from the Mastery Program supply lesson:

• Student paint dries dark and dull. Less pigment means low chroma and low saturation, so the color on your palette isn’t the color on your canvas.
• It often skips real pigments. Many student lines use pigment substitutes. When you learn warm and cool color temperature, those lessons depend on real pigment, and with substitutes they simply stop working.
• You can’t follow a demonstration with it. When the teacher’s paint and yours behave differently, you blame yourself for what’s actually the tube.
• You can dull a bright color, never brighten a dull one. A saturated paint can always be toned down with its complement. A weak one can’t be pushed back up.

Brands Elli recommends at the professional level include Golden for acrylic, plus Gamblin, M. Graham, Holbein, Rembrandt and the professional Winsor & Newton line for oil. Gamblin’s 1980 line is the one student grade oil she’s comfortable with, because it still uses real pigment. Her blunt advice on the rest: if you’ve never heard of the brand and can only find it on a bargain marketplace, skip it.

For oil, add one more thing to the list: a fast drying white in a larger tube. You use white more than any other color, and a fast drying one carries everything you mix it into toward drying overnight.

How do you tell whether a paint is good quality?

Good paint is heavily pigmented, clearly labeled, and comes in a warm and a cool version of each main color.

• Pigment load. Professional paint is juicy, bright and tints strongly, so a little goes a long way.
• Transparent or opaque. Good acrylic and oil paint is either transparent (for glazes and washes) or opaque (for midtones and highlights). Most brands print this in tiny type on the back, so label your tubes on the front where you can see it.
• Warm and cool pairs. A starting palette needs a warm and a cool yellow, orange, red, green, blue and violet. Two blues that look similar in the tube mix very differently.
• Lightfastness. Pigment that won’t fade matters the moment you sell or gift a painting.

If color mixing still feels mysterious, color theory is the next thing to learn after you’ve stocked your palette.

What brushes does every artist need?

A small set covers almost everything: a filbert, a flat or bright, a round for detail, and a script or liner. Learning the marks each one makes matters more than owning a huge set.

First choose the hair. Bristle brushes (stiff, usually white hog hair) hold a lot of paint and leave visible strokes, which suits thick impasto. Soft brushes (sable or a synthetic that mimics it) give smooth strokes, soft feathered edges and clean glazes. For most realistic oil and acrylic work, soft is easier to learn on.

Then the shape:

• Filbert. A flat brush with a rounded tip. Elli calls herself a filbert girl: it covers ground and softens edges in one stroke.
• Bright and flat. Square brushes, the bright short and the flat longer. Good for crisp planes and blocking in.
• Round. Detail and line work. Use it with care, since round brushes encourage the stab and dab habit.
• Script or liner. A long, whippy brush for hair, whiskers and fine lines. Cheap and important.
• Fan, mop and cat’s tongue. Specialty brushes for texture, thin washes and portrait detail. Pick these up when a painting calls for them.

Choose long handles when you can. Holding the brush further back gives you more variety of stroke and better habits than choking up on a short handle.

For more on shapes and bristles, read Types of Paint Brushes and How to Choose the Right One, and once you own good brushes, How to Clean Your Paint Brushes So They Last for Years keeps them alive.

Which paints belong in a professional kit?

The right paint depends on how you like to work, so most artists settle into one or two mediums rather than owning all of them.

• Artist grade acrylics. Vibrant, fast drying, and versatile.
• Professional oil paints. Rich color and long drying time for blending, ideal for classical and expressive work.
• Watercolors. Transparent, portable, and built for layered effects. Great for travel.
• Gouache. Bold color with a matte finish, between watercolor and acrylic.
• Alcohol and acrylic inks. Fluid and fun for abstract work and unconventional surfaces.
• Spray paint (water based). Useful for mixed media. Water based means low odor indoors.
• Paint pens. Controlled lines for highlights, outlines and signatures.
• Pastels. You don’t need expensive oil pastels to learn on, and soft pastels work at almost any quality as long as the set covers a full range of darks, midtones and lights.

If you’re deciding between the two most common painting mediums, Acrylic vs Oil Paint: 5 Key Differences lays out the tradeoffs.

Where can you save money on art supplies?

Save on anything you practice on. Elli contradicts her own paint advice here on purpose: cheap canvas is fine.

• Practice canvases. An economy canvas from a craft store paints the same as an expensive one while you’re learning. The difference shows up for the buyer: galleries and collectors want a thicker, gallery depth edge. Switch when you start building work to sell, or frame the thin ones.
• Warm-up surfaces. A piece of cardboard from a shipping box coated in house paint, a cheap canvas board, or thick paper. Warm-ups are for brushwork, not for keeping.
• Newsprint. A large pad costs a few dollars and lasts a long time. Every studio should have one.
• Drawing paper. Any brand works. Smooth Bristol for detailed drawings, something with more tooth for pastel.
• Pencils. Any graphite set will do.
• Your palette. Make it. A sheet of real glass (not plexiglass) taped over a white board makes a better palette than anything sold in a pad.
• Your easel. Building one is the least expensive way to set up a studio.

What surfaces should you paint and draw on?

The surface matters as much as the paint, and matching the two is half the battle. Water based media warps thin paper, and oil soaks into a board that hasn’t been primed.

• Canvas panels. Affordable and ideal for studies, pre primed and ready to go.
• Stretched canvas. The standard for finished oil or acrylic work.
• Wood panels and gesso boards. Rigid and smooth for detail, collage and layering.
• Mixed media boards. Coat them with gesso or one coat of eggshell or semi gloss white house paint before oil, or the board drinks the paint.
• Watercolor paper (300gsm or heavier). Essential for heavy washes without warping.
• Newsprint, Bristol and pastel paper. Newsprint for sketches, smooth Bristol for finished drawings, toothy pastel paper for chalk and oil pastel, and a couple of sheets of black paper.

Choosing the right canvas is its own small skill. How to Choose a Canvas for Painting covers quality, types, and what professionals actually buy.

What drawing and mixing tools do artists use?

Beyond brushes, a handful of hand tools do the unglamorous work of shaping, measuring, and mixing.

• Graphite pencils. H means hard and light, B means soft and dark. An HB, 2B, 4B, 6B and 9B cover what you need.
• Charcoal. Vine or willow charcoal (soft), compressed charcoal pencils in hard, medium and soft, a compressed stick, and one white charcoal pencil.
• Erasers. A kneaded eraser, a white plastic eraser and a precision or stick eraser for detail, plus blending stumps in a few sizes.
• A proportion tool. A proportional divider enlarges or shrinks a source image to the size you want. Large ones are hard to find; search “proportional divider” or “proportion tool.”
• Palette knives. Two to four shapes for mixing and for laying on thick paint.
• Subtraction tools. A wipe-out tool, cotton swabs and a cotton rag for lifting paint off the canvas.

Palette knives deserve more attention than they get. 10 Palette Knife Painting Techniques for Oils and Acrylics shows what they can do on the canvas.

What do you need to paint with oils safely?

Oil painting adds three things: a solvent, a jar, and a few mediums.

• A non-toxic solvent. Citrus or soy based solvents are kinder to your head and your home than hardware store paint thinner.
• A glass jar. Glass or a tin can, never plastic, since solvent can eat through it.
• A sludge jar. When you finish painting, pour used solvent into a big jar instead of the sink. The paint settles overnight and the clean solvent on top is ready to reuse.
• Mediums. A glazing medium, a little linseed oil (a small bottle lasts ages) and a wax or impasto medium for palette knife work.
• Rubbing alcohol and a razor. Spray dried oil on a glass palette, then scrape it up clean.

What studio gear makes a productive workspace?

Studio gear is the part you buy once and keep for years: an easel, a palette, good lighting and storage.

• Easel. Saves your back and keeps the canvas upright at eye level. An adjustable or homemade easel lets you work comfortably for hours.
• Palette. Glass for oil. A stay wet palette keeps acrylics workable across sessions in dry climates.
• Lighting. Put your light above and behind you so no cast shadows fall across the canvas. Daylight balanced bulbs keep color accurate at night.
• Printed references. Print your source photos on photo paper rather than painting from a phone. A screen flattens form, and form is what you’re learning to see.
• Apron and storage. An apron with pockets and a rolling cart or shelving keep the mess contained.

Do you need digital tools as an artist?

No, but they earn their place if you plan compositions, test color, or share your process online.

• Tablet and stylus. Useful for sketching, layout planning and testing palettes.
• A drawing or painting app. Layers make it easy to plan mixed media pieces.
• A simple design tool. For portfolios, social posts and marketing visuals.
• Lighting and a phone mount. If you film your process, steady video changes what you can share.
• Backup storage. Protects your reference photos, finished work and video archive.

When should you buy more art supplies?

Buy more when your process asks for it. As you paint, you’ll gravitate toward certain materials and leave others alone. One artist falls for pastels and wants every pastel tool there is; another finds spray paint and buys every color. That pull is part of finding your style, and it’s the right time to spend.

Until then, keep it small: one medium, good paint, a few good brushes, cheap practice surfaces and a glass palette. For more on the techniques these supplies serve, browse the full oil painting techniques hub.

If you want a structure to put these supplies to work, the 2-Week Challenge gives you a guided start and real feedback while you paint, no full studio required.

Frequently asked questions

How do you choose the right art supplies as a beginner?

Pick one medium and buy only what the next few paintings need: a set of professional grade paint, three or four good brushes, a few inexpensive canvases, a palette and a pencil. Spend on the paint and brushes, save on practice surfaces, and add tools when a painting asks for them.

Should beginners buy student grade or professional grade paint?

Professional grade, if you can. Student lines often use less pigment or pigment substitutes, so colors dry darker and duller than you expect and color mixing lessons on warm and cool stop working. Buy fewer tubes of better paint before you buy more tubes of cheap paint.

Is it worth buying expensive art supplies?

For paint and brushes, yes. Better pigment mixes truer and goes further, and a well made brush lasts years with good care. For practice canvases, newsprint, drawing pencils and warm-up surfaces, inexpensive works fine while you learn.

Can you use cheap canvas for painting?

Yes. A thin edge economy canvas paints the same as a pricey one while you're learning. The upgrade matters when you sell: galleries and collectors expect a thicker, gallery depth edge, or you can frame a thin canvas instead.

What are the essential art supplies for a beginner?

Start small and specific: one set of paints in a single medium, three or four brushes (a flat, a round, a filbert, and a liner or script), a few canvases or a pad of heavy paper, a glass palette, and graphite pencils with an eraser. That covers a first painting without overwhelming you.

What professional art tools are worth the higher price?

Paint and brushes reward the upgrade most. Artist grade pigment is more concentrated and lightfast than student grade, and a few good brushes outperform a large cheap set. Studio gear like an easel and lighting is a one time investment you keep for years.

What is the difference between acrylic, oil, watercolor, and gouache?

Acrylics are fast drying, water based, and forgiving. Oils stay workable for days and blend beautifully but need solvents or oil mediums. Watercolors are transparent, portable, and built on layering. Gouache is opaque and matte, sitting between watercolor and acrylic. Each one calls for slightly different surfaces and brushes.

What surfaces can you paint on?

Stretched canvas is the standard for finished oil and acrylic work. Canvas panels are cheaper and good for studies. Wood panels and gesso boards give a rigid, smooth surface for detail and mixed media. For water based media, use heavy watercolor paper (300gsm or more) so it doesn't warp under washes.